Page images
PDF
EPUB

which have to be solved before we can approach in English education to what I venture to call the ideal of Imperial responsibility.

In criticising the old mediæval system of education which prevailed in England until comparatively recent years, and which still has far too great a hold on the more venerable and important institutions of our island home, I would not have you suppose that I am an advocate of a complete, or even approximately complete, basis of utilitarian education. It is an easy charge for those who desire stare super antiquas vias to throw in one's teeth. I have little hesitation in expressing my belief that the time has come (and I speak as one whose training was that of a classical scholar, for I was brought up in the straitest sect of academical Pharisees)-I say I have no hesitation in expressing my belief that the time has come, not only that the study of the two ancient languages should be reduced to one for all except scholastic specialists, but also that both should yield pride of place in our educational system to the claims of English, modern languages, mathematics, natural science, and, not least, manual training, so that our young men should be fitly equipped to put their hand to any work which may confront them amid all the complex problems and critical situations to be found within the world-wide boundaries of the British Empire.

Germany, France, and the United States have been beforehand with us in the working out of such a reformed system of education. I am by no means one of those who believe that we should be wise in copying the methods in their entirety of any of these three peoples in their educational methods. Undoubtedly in all three there has been a more organised connection between the actual teaching given in their respective schools and the industrial, social, and political needs of the respective peoples. But no one nation is exactly like another nation in its temper and genius, and I should be sorry to advocate, for instance, the highly organised system of State education in Germany, under which it could be predicted to a certainty that boys and girls in every secondary or primary school on any given Friday morning should be studying (say) the geographical importance of Natal or the outlines of the coast of Lincolnshire. There must be many educational differences, because the idiosyncrasies of each nation differ from those of another, and I do not think we need ever fear that our intrinsic individuality will be crushed into any Teutonic cast-iron mould or ground down beneath the heel of some bureaucratic educational despotism. But that we ought to change our ways still more than we have, and adopt saner educational models, many searchings of heart through a long educational career have gradually, but overwhelmingly, convinced me. If we are apt to think, speak, and act Imperially, our education must take form from a strong Imperial sentiment, and must aim at instilling Imperial instincts in the young lives which that education is meant to control and develop.

I have spoken hitherto of this subject mainly from the point of view of secondary education, with which I am the most conversant; not only for that reason, however, but because most of those who are destined to proceed to the distant outlying parts of the British Empire, and, when there, to take prominent parts in the development of that Empire, obtain their educational equipment from the secondary schools of England. It is, therefore, on curricula offered or desiderated in them that I have exclusively dwelt. But I do not blink the fact that the proper educational organisation of our elementary schools on the one hand, and of our universities on the other, exercises a large influence on the solution of Imperial problems.

On elementary education, however, I do not propose to touch in this address, mainly because I look forward to experts in primary schools directing the thoughts of this association more directly to them. But I will touch with great brevity on the subject of university education.

Whether Oxford and Cambridge-particularly Oxfordwill ever so reform themselves as to contribute largely to such solution remains to be seen. Personally, I look with far greater confidence to the more recently organised universities-those of London, Leeds, Sheffield, Man

chester, and the like to equip men educationally with those moral, physical, and intellectual qualities which are most in requisition in our great dependencies and commonwealths.

Such institutions, from their newness, their eagerness, their freedom from antiquated prejudices and vested interests, are more likely to be counted upon for many years to come to send forth a stream of young men who have learned in the school of hardness to face the difficul ties and to adapt themselves to the austere conditions which are inseparable from life in unworked regions and half-discovered continents. And it is at once a hopeful and inspiring thought that the great Dominion of Canada will welcome such to herself as sufficient and efficient citizens of her all but boundless territories, that she will recognise in them "bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh," physically, mentally, and morally capable, in company with those of her own sons who have long settled in the land, of extending the borders of the Empire by enlarging its resources, and of lifting, securing, and consolidating thereby the destinies of the Anglo-Saxon

race.

It

There is still one more educational factor on which 1 would ask attention before I close this address. It is this-the necessity of a closer touch educationally (in the sense of "academically ") between the secondary schools and colleges of the Mother Country and similar institutions in the great Dominion and commonwealths which own her parentage. How this can be effected without great modification of our existing English system it is hard to see. But one point is quite clear. We must give up that part of our system which insists on choking the passage of the student from point to point in his educato the privileges of further education, if such examination on entrance and throughout his academical course. would be of incalculable advantage to the Empire at large if an extension of educational intercommunion, such as was inaugurated by the noble benefactions of the late Cecil Rhodes, could be secured throughout the Empire. Undoubtedly examination would be the surest test for determining the question of the admission of a student to the privileges of further education if such examination could be conducted within a limited geographical area. But it is quite an impossible system if adopted as between the outlying parts of a great empire. The United States of America have taught us a better way. For instance, in the State of Minnesota, the university has legislated that if and when the principal of a high school of recognised position certifies that a student has successfully pursued for a specified length of time those studies in that high school that would entitle him to admission to the university, he should be admitted thereto without further delay or hindrance. What a paralysing curse the Charybdis of examination has been to all true learning only those who have suffered from it for thirty years can bear adequate testimony. It would be one of the most fertilising sources from which to secure good and progressive citizens if, instead of admitting within her borders all or any who came of their own spontaneity or from compulsion (leaving their country, perchance, for their country's good), the Government authorities in the Dominion could get into closer touch with the educational authorities of the Mother Country, who would act as guarantee that the material sent out by the Mother Country should be of an approved and first-rate quality. This might be worked on the American "accredited school system, under which the authorities of the school sending the pupil should feel the maximum of responsibility in recommending his admission to the academical, or the technical, or the industrial organisations existing in the Dominion.

Since penning the first sentences of the above paragraph last June my eye has been caught by a notice which appeared in the columns of the Times on the 28th day of that month while I was engaged in the very act of correcting the proofs of this address; but I prefer to leave the paragraph written as it stands, as the notice in question is an eloquent commentary on my suggestion of educational intercommunion.

I may, perhaps, be allowed to read the extract from the Times verbatim, though it may be familiar to some

at least among my audience. It is headed "International Interchange of Students-a New Movement."

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

"We have received,' says the Times, "the following interesting particulars of a new educational movement to provide for the interchange of University students among the English-speaking peoples.

"The object is to provide opportunities for as many as possible of the educated youth of the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States (who, it is reasonable to suppose, will become leaders in thought, action, civic and national government in the future) to obtain some real insight into the life, customs, and progress of other nations at a time when their own opinions are forming, with a minimum of inconvenience to their academic work and the least possible expense, with a view to broadening their conceptions and rendering them of greater economic and social value, such knowledge being, it is believed, essential for effectual leadership.

[ocr errors]

"The additional objects of the movement are to increase the value and efficiency of, as well as to extend, present University training by the provision of certain Travelling Scholarships for practical observation in other countries under suitable guidance. These scholarships will enable those students to benefit who might otherwise be unable to do so through financial restrictions. It also enables the administration to exercise greater power of direction in the form the travel is to take. In addition to academic qualifications, the selected candidate should be what is popularly known as an all-round man; the selection

[ocr errors]

to be along the lines of the Rhodes Scholarships. "The further objects are to extend the influence of such education indirectly among the men who are not selected as scholars (through intercourse with those who have travelled) by systematic arrangements of the periods' eligibility while they are still undergraduates.

To promote interest in imperial, international, and domestic relations, civic and social problems, and to foster a mutual sympathy and understanding imperially and internationally among students.

"To afford technical and industrial students facilities to examine into questions of particular interest to them in manufactures, &c., by observation in other countries and by providing them with introductions to leaders in industrial activity.

"To promote interest in travel as an educational factor among the authorities of Universities, with a view to the possibility of some kind of such training being included in the regular curricula.

"To promote interest in other Universities, their aims and student life, the compulsory physical training, and methods of working their ways through college, for example, being valuable points for investigation.

"To promote international interchange for academic work among English-speaking Universities; and, in the case of the British Empire, to afford facilities for students of one division to gain, under favourable circumstances, information relative to the needs, development, and potentialities of other divisions; and to promote an academic interchange of students among the Universities of the Empire.

“As already indicated, there is a widespread interest in the movements so far as the United Kingdom is con'cerned; while in Canada and the United States there is also a widespread recognition of the value of the scheme; and although committees have not been actually organised there as in this country, a very large body of the most prominent educationists are strongly in favour of the plan, and have promised their co-operation if the scheme is financed.

"It is proposed to establish two students' travelling bureaux, one in New York and one in London; an American secretary (resident in New York) and a British secretary (resident in London), both of whom shall be college men appointed to afford every facility to any graduate or undergraduate of any University who wishes to visit the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom for the purpose of obtaining an insight into the student, national, and industrial life of those countries. The bureaux will undertake the work of providing information relating to United States, Canadian, British, and other

English-speaking Universities for the use of students, undergraduates, and others. They will also provide information relating to educational tours of any description in English-speaking countries, and the arrangement of tours suitable to the needs of the inquirer with a view to his obtaining the greatest facilities for education with a minimum of expense. Furthermore it will be their duty to provide information as to the best places for the study of educational, governmental, industrial, and social problems in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and other parts of the Empire, as well as to provide introductions to leaders in the above-named spheres of activity, besides undertaking the organisation and conduct of special tours for educational purposes, if necessary.

"It is proposed to provide 28 travelling scholarships, 14 of these being available for Universities in the United Kingdom, fo for Universities in America, and four for Universities in Canada. The arrangements will be controlled by general committees, one for the United Kingdom and one for Canada and the United States, unless it is found necessary to inaugurate a separate committee for each of the latter."

66

You will observe, then, that a scheme which I had ventured to suggest as being ' of incalculable advantage to the Empire had, before I wrote the words quoted, been advocated entirely without my knowledge by a body of influential educational leaders in England, whose names were appended to the notice which I have read; and I need only add that it is quite certain that I am interpreting the sentiments of all here assembled in wishing Godspeed to the development of the scheme, which seems likely to prove, if carried into effect, a great, if not the greatest, educational factor of Imperialism.

But it may be objected here, is not your own horizon circumscribed? Why should educational ideals be limited, even by so extended a conception as Imperialism? Should not the ultimate aim of all education be, not the federation of one race only, but the federation of the world at large-the brotherhood of man?

I am not concerned to deny that such a lofty conception is the true end of all physical, moral, and mental training.

But if the master mind of a Milton was content to define true education to be "that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war," it may well suffice us if we extend our (at present) too narrow conceptions (the aim of which seems to be the cultivation of a mere island patriotism) to a sphere which has for its end the imperialistic sentiment of a whole race.

It may, indeed, be well doubted whether a race-sentiment is not an ultimate factor beyond which it is impossible in an imperfect world to go. Universal philanthropy in its most catholic sense is a sentiment which the limited conditions of the earth's surface seem to render impossible. So long as men's ambitions are an unlimited quantity, and so long as the habitable globe remains, as it ever must remain, a limited quantity, so long will the populations of the world be continually liable to shifting movements and frequent dislocations. Practical educationists, then, must inevitably confine the scientific consideration of aims and methods in education to the development of the highest interests of their race rather than of mankind at large.

[ocr errors]

And that being so, the last point on which I would insist in dealing with the educational factors of Imperialism is to emphasise the importance of what the educationists of the United States call civics as the binding power which should fasten together all the separate educational faggots in any Imperial scheme of education-the duty of personal service to the State, the positive obligation which makes us all members incorporate in one Imperial system. In our love of individual freedom, in our jealousy of interference with our individual liberty of action, in our insular disregard and depreciation of intellectual forces working in our sister communities beyond the seas, have lost sight of this civic responsibility which has ever lain on our shoulders and from which we can never dissociate ourselves, so long as our Empire remains as part of our ancestral heritage.

we

It is this positive duty towards each other and our race beyond the seas which those who live in our island home have been slow in realising, and it has been a real blot on our educational system that such ideas as Imperial responsibility and Imperial necessities have not been inculcated in the young people in our schools and colleges. As an illustration, I may observe that it has been even debated and doubted in some responsible quarters in England whether the Union Jack should wave over our educational institutions on the days of national festivity and national observance.

To sum up. By these and other kindred means I would urge a closer educational touch between the Mother Country and the Empire at large.

Long ago a great Minister was able to say: "Our hold of the Colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, and from similar privileges. These are ties which, though light as air, are strong as links of iron."

But times have changed. To-day we are confronted with the problems of a vast and complicated Empiregreat commonwealths, great dominions, sundered from each other by long seas and half a world, and however closely science has geographically brought them together, we cannot in soul and sympathy, nor ultimately in destiny. remain attached, affiliated as mother and children should be, unless we grapple to each other and understand each other in the greatest of all interests-the educational training which we give to our children in the one part of our Empire to make them suitable citizens in another.

In suggesting reforms and modifications in which this educational unity may best be expressed, forgive me if I have but touched, and touched inadequately, on the fringe of a great subject, the transcendent importance of which it requires no elaboration of mine to impress on the earnest attention of the people of this great Dominion -which great Dominion may I be allowed to salute, without flattery or favour, as the most favoured by natural beauty and by virgin wealth of all the children of our common Motherland? May I salute her in terms which formed the old toast with which the two greatest of our English public schools, Winchester and Eton, pledged each other when we met in our annual cricket contest: Mater pulchra, filia pulchrior!

GEOLOGY AT THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. IF the number of geologists from the British Isles who attended the meeting of Section C was somewhat limited, the number from the American continent was considerable, and it was greatly to them, and especially to those from Canada, that the markedly successful character of the sectional meetings was due. The Canadian geologists not only contributed a particularly interesting series of papers, but also arranged two excursions, which were largely attended.

The papers read before the section may be classified in four groups.

(1) Stratigraphical Geology.

Mr. J. B. Tyrrell's account of the geology of Western Canada, which followed the president's address, afforded an excellent introduction to the succeeding series of papers on local geology. Pre-Cambrian geology naturally occupied a good deal of the attention of the section, which had the advantage of hearing papers by Prof. A. P. Coleman on the bearing of pre-Cambrian geology on uniformitarianism, and by Prof. W. G. Miller on the pre-Cambrian rocks of Canada. Prof. Coleman described the somewhat complicated subdivision which Canadian geologists recognise in the pre-Cambrian rocks, and pointed out the varied nature of their origin, including as they do quartzites, sandstones sometimes passing into arkose, carbonaceous shale, limestone, igneous rocks both volcanic and intrusive, and metamorphic rocks in great variety. The most interesting point about Prof. Coleman's paper was the evidence he brought forward for the existence of glacial conditions in pre-Cambrian (Huronian) times, and the bearing of this on uniformitarianism. He exhibited stones which he had extracted from the pre-Cambrian conglomerate of the Cobalt district, the upper surface of which was scratched by the Pleistocene glaciation, while the lower (embedded) surface

after extraction, also showed stria which it was diffch to distinguish from those produced by the Pleistocene ice. In the subsequent · discussion - Drs. Fairchild, Strahan, Warren Upham, and Dwerryhouse expressed the opinion that Prof. Coleman had established his contention.

Prof. Miller's paper was chiefly directed to bringing into prominence the almost limitless mining possibilities of the Canadian pre-Cambrian rocks. He pointed out that although they have as yet been very imperfectly explored, they are already, in the Cobalt and Sudbury districts, the chief, or among the chief, world's source of nickel, cobalt, silver, and arsenic, while in the Michigan district their yield of copper and iron is one of the most important in the world. The same may be said with regard to the mica mines of Ontario.

The stratigraphy of the Palæozoic rocks of the British Isles was represented by the reports of several of the association's committees, including the following:-(1) Mr. E. S. Cobbold, on the Cambrian rocks of Comley, Shropshire; (2) Prof. S. H. Reynolds, on the igneous and associated rocks of the Glensaul district, Co. Galway; and (3) Dr. A. Vaughan, on the faunal succession of the Lower Carboniferous (Avonian) of the British Isles. The latter report included an important series of tables embodying Dr. Vaughan's latest views on the subdivision of the Lower Carboniferous rocks, and the correlation of the sequence in various parts of the British Isles. With the view of helping to bring Dr. Vaughan's work to the notice of Canadian geologists, Prof. S. H. Reynolds exhibited a series of lantern-slides of the two principal sections of the Bristol district, those of the Avon and of Burrington. He also contributed a paper on the lithology of the Burrington section. Another stratigraphical paper having reference to the Carboniferous rocks of the south-west of England was that by Mr. H. Bolton, on new faunal horizons in the Bristol coalfield, in which further evidence was brought forward of the occurrence of marine episodes in the Coalmeasures of this part of the country. The only remaining stratigraphical paper was one by Dr. D. Woolacott, on the classification of the Permian rocks of the north-east of England.

(2) Glacial Geology.

Glacial geology naturally had much attention paid to it by the section when meeting in Canada, and the members were to be congratulated on hearing from Dr. Warren Upham an account of the glacial Lake Agassiz, in connection with which his name is so well known. At its maximum extent, according to Dr. Upham, it covered an area of about 110,000 square miles, exceeding the combined areas of the five great lakes tributary to the St. Lawrence. Lake Winnipeg forms its reduced representative at the present day. Dr. Upham's paper was followed by an interesting discussion, in which many leading Canadian and American geologists took part. Members of the section had, further, the opportunity of seeing some of the glacial and other deposits of Lake Agassiz on excursions which were made to Stony Mountain and Bird's Hill.

Prof. A. P. Coleman, in a paper on the extent of the ice sheets in the Great Plains, pointed out that while boulders from the Archæan region to the east are spread over the great plains as far west as Calgary, further to the west an older drift, derived from the Rocky Mountain region, is met with, this sometimes passing below the eastern drift. In places boulders from the eastern drift are found stranded 5000 feet up on the sides of the Rocky Mountains. These Prof. Coleman believes were stranded from ice-dammed lakes at a time when the Rocky Mountain region stood at a lower level than it does at present.

Glacial geology was further represented by a paper by Dr. A. Strahan, on the glacial geology of South Wales: by a lantern lecture by Dr. A. R. Dwerryhouse, on the glacial geology of Britain, as illustrative of the work of the committee on erratic blocks, and by the report of the committee for the investigation of the fossiliferous drift at Kirmington, Lincolnshire, and elsewhere.

(3) Economic Geology.

This subject, as might have been expected, was well to the fore, a series of most interesting papers on the ore deposits of Canada being given by Canadian geologists. Prof. W. G Miller dealing with the gold, silver, and iron

ores, Prof. A. P. Coleman with copper and nickel, Mr. J. B. Tyrrell with placer mining, and Prof. T. L. Waller with the rare metals. Prof. Miller prefaced his description of the gold and silver mining with a general account of mining in Canada. He pointed out that, until a few years ago, the central part of Canada was regarded as purely agricultural. The discovery of the rich ore deposits of Sudbury and Cobalt in 1908 completely changed this, and the value of the mineral produce rose from about a million dollars in 1901 to eighty-seven million dollars in 1908. The most interesting feature of the mineral wealth of Canada is its great variety. Canada is now the largest producer in the world of nickel, cobalt, asbestos, and corundum. As regards the immediate subject of his paper, Prof. Miller stated that the output of gold from the Archæan districts was not great, but it was found in British Columbia and the Yukon, the latter district standing third in the world's output. Gold is found also in Nova Scotia, and has recently been discovered at Prince Albert, in Saskatchewan. The great silver-producing region is Cobalt. The Canadian production of iron is as yet comparatively unimportant.

Prof. Coleman pointed out that copper is found in many parts of Canada, and in British Columbia some very lowgrade ores are worked to a profit. Most of the copper of Ontario is found associated with nickel, the great locality for these substances being Sudbury, where the deposits occur in the marginal portion of a laccolitic mass of norite intruded between the Upper Huronian and the Animikie.

In dealing with placer mining, Mr. J. B. Tyrrell pointed out that it was almost confined to the mountainous region of the west, and that the industry had gradually spread along the river valleys from California northwards until eventually the Klondyke deposits were met with. These owed their value rather to exceptional conditions of erosion than to special richness. Mr. Tyrrell estimated that the Yukon district had yielded hitherto about six million ounces of gold, and might yield another four million.

Prof. T. L. Waller concluded the series of papers on the mineral resources of Canada with a description of the rare metals. Platinum and palladium are found in small quantities in the native state in placer workings at various points. Platinum has also been found combined with arsenic in the decomposed superficial deposits of the Sudbury district. Canada is also rich in undeveloped deposits of molybdenum and tungsten.

(4) Palaeontology and other Subjects.

In addition to the president's masterly address on the evolution of vertebrate life as shown by fossils, vertebrate palæontology was represented by two short papers, also by the president, recording the discovery of dinosaurian remains in the Cretaceous rocks of Australia and the Trias of Brazil, and by the report of the committee appointed to investigate the footprints of the Trias of Great Britain.

con

Other papers read before the section were by Mr. E. Dixon, on unconformities on limestone and their temporaneous pipes and swallow-holes; by Prof. E. F. Chandler, on the rainfall run-off ratio in the prairies of Central North America; and by Dr. Tempest Anderson, on the volcano of Metavanu, in the Samoa Islands. The eruptive phenomena of this volcano closely resemble those of Kilauea, in the Sandwich Islands; but while the latter volcano, according to Dr. Anderson, is in its old age, the former shows the same phenomena with the exuberance of youth. A further interesting point in Dr. Anderson's paper was his confirmation by actual observation of the subaqueous production of the " pillow structure in lavas.

The reports of the following committees were also presented-on South African strata, by Prof. J. W. Gregory; on topographical and geological terms in South Africa; on geological photographs, this taking the form of an exhibition of lantern-slides illustrating certain aspects of British scenery; on the crystalline rocks of Anglesey; on the composition of the Charnwood rocks; on further excavations on Neolithic sites in north Grecce; and on the salt lakes of Biskra. This latter report, which was represented merely by the title, refers to the work upon which the late recorder of Section C, Mr. Joseph Lomas, was engaged at the time of his lamented death.

ENGINEERING AT THE BRITISH

ASSOCIATION.

THE proceedings in Section G consisted largely of papers by Canadian engineers on a closely related group of subjects, determined by the conditions of Winnipeg. Winnipeg occupies a peculiar geographical position, similar in some respects to Singapore or Buenos Ayres, as the gate of a great productive area. This position, and the bearing on it of the communications to the section, are most easily explained by recalling the geography of the country. Canada consists roughly of five sections.

(1) The Laurentian area, the so-called shield of Canada, is defined by the St. Lawrence and the chain of lakes which extends through Winnipeg, Athabasca, and the Great Slave and Bear Lakes to the polar regions. This vast district lying round Hudson's Bay is in the main a wilderness of lakes, rocks, and forests, swept clean of all cultivable soil by Glacial ice, except in certain areas where later Palæozoic rocks have been left over the Laurentian.

(2) The rich agricultural country between the Laurentian area and the Rocky Mountains. This, the modern provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, is the northern section, reaching to 60° N. lat., of that geographical area of which the southern section is the basin of the Mississippi.

(3) The mountain region between the eastern foothills of the Rockies and the Pacific, a strip 400 miles wide extending up the whole coast.

(4) The fertile lands along the south of the St. Lawrence, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the peninsula between Erie and Huron.

(5) The Arctic regions of tundra and ice.

To these five sections must be added for administrative purposes another of equal importance.

(6) The navigable route of St. Lawrence and the lakes. Winnipeg is the gate between (2) and (6).

This section (2), 1200 miles long from north-west to south-east, and from 300 to 500 miles wide, is of extraordinary fertility, and especially adapted for growing wheat. The isothermals take a strong bend upwards in this region, and wheat has been ripened as far north as the Great Slave Lake, in 62° N. lat. The fertility of the soil is such that wheat can be grown remuneratively for many years in succession, and where the practice has obtained of allowing the land to be fallow one year in four to prevent exhaustion, it has to be sparsely tilled in the seasons. following the fallow years to prevent the crops choking themselves by their own exuberance. Of this area, only 5 per cent. is yet cultivated, but in 1908 this produced 30 million quarters of grain, and carried nearly 4 million head of stock.

So long as the United States grows enough wheat for her own consumption, and until a new route is opened to the Atlantic by the Nelson or Churchill rivers on Hudson's Bay, the main trade of the provinces must pass east between Lake Winnipeg and Lake of the Woods. Here on the Red River, where the fertile lands end and the Laurentian wilderness begins, is Winnipeg, on the site of an old Hudson Bay Co.'s fort, Upper Fort Garry. A better site would have been at Selkirk or Lower Fort Garry, lower down the river and nearer the lake, but the site of the great depôt was ultimately fixed by the Canadian Pacific Railway for indirect reasons.

The great engineering questions of the city are to find the best means to develop the agricultural industry of the north-west, and to improve the trade routes, especially to the Atlantic. The papers presented to the Engineering Section dealt largely with these two subjects. Two papers on the grain industry, each of considerable length, were contributed by Mr. John Miller, an official at the experimental farm at Indian Head, Saskatchewan, and by Mr. George Harcourt, Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the Province of Alberta. The latter of these, especially, was a Daner of exceptional ability and interest, the author being intimately acquainted with his subject and an admirable lecturer. He exhibited a map showing some of the extreme points in which wheat has been successfully ripened, and the area of potential grain-growing country. The subjects of these papers were not strictly those of engineers, but the urgent need for improved communications with which other papers dealt could hardly have been realised without

them. These other papers fell into two groups, viz. deep water and railway communications. The problems of wheat transport are (1) to bring ocean steamers to the nearest possible point to the wheat fields, and (2) to handle and transport the grain to the ports as efficiently as possible. At present ocean-going steamers drawing not more than 27 feet of water can reach Montreal at all tides, and this depth is being increased to 30 feet. Ships drawing 14 feet of water can pass between Montreal and Lake Erie by the lower Ottawa river, the Lachine and Rideau canals, Lake Ontario, and the Welland canal. Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior can be navigated by vessels drawing 20 feet of water, the depth of water in the Soo locks. If the depth of water in the lower Ottawa river, and in the Lachine, Rideau, and Welland canals, in all of which the depth is now 14 feet, could be increased to 22 feet, ocean steamers of, say, 7000 tons, by taking in or discharging the last 1000 tons at Montreal, could reach Lake. Superior and charge or discharge cargo at Port Arthur, the nearest point to Winnipeg. Thus, subject to a small proportion being transhipped at Montreal, cargoes could be carried in bulk by ocean steamers of the size of ordinary tramps between Port Arthur, in the very heart of the continent, and any Atlantic port.

This route, however, is open to serious objection in that it lies through the Detroit River, and is liable to interruption by political difficulties with the United States. A new canal route which is not subject to this objection has been surveyed. The scheme, which is called the Georgian Bay Canal Scheme, provides for a canal between Montreal and Lake Superior by way of the Ottawa River, Lake Nipissing, and the Pickerel and French rivers, having a minimum depth of 22 feet and locks 650 feet long, at a cost of 20 millions sterling. This canal would accommodate ships of the type now used to carry ore and coal between Cleveland and Lake Superior, as well as ordinary ocean-going tramp steamers. As a set-off to the cost, the water-powers that would become available are put at one million horse-power, and the value of the country that would be opened up would be very large. It seems probable that the work will be started before long.

On this side of the subject three considerable papers were read. Colonel Anderson described the navigation works on the St. Lawrence up to Montreal, and showed maps of all the lights and buoys, and of the dredging accomplished and still to be done. Mr. St. Laurent placed in the president's hands copies of the Government reports and plans of the Georgian Bay Canal surveys, and the latter read a paper to the section on the subject. addition, Major George Stephens contributed an admirable paper on the St. Lawrence River as an imperial highway, and on the importance of Montreal as a central port of distribution.

In

The Hudson Bay route is not likely to be developed in the immediate future, and little reference was made to it. The Canadian Northern Railway has surveyed a route to Churchill, on the Hudson Bay, though the mouth of the Nelson may ultimately be preferred, as it is said that this river, draining lands far to the south, even beyond the U.S. frontier, is very free from shore ice. In the future Canadians look to the Nelson River being made navigable up to Lake Winnipeg, and from there the Saskatchewan may carry ships to the foothills of the Rockies.

was

Mr. T. E. Schwitzer, assistant chief engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railway, contributed a paper on some important works on that railway. The Lethbridge Viaduct is an immense structure, more than a mile long and more than 300 feet high, and the mode of construction strikingly bold and effective. The revision of the grades in Kicking Horse Pass, involving the construction of two long spiral tunnels in the rock, was also described, and the great increase obtained in the loads hauled by a given engine-power. Careful grading on lines where the heavy loads of grain and other material usual in Canada are hauled is of extreme importance, and much was said on the cost of rail transport both in this paper and in two others by Mr. Macpherson and Mr. Lanigan. Mr. Duncan Macpherson described the organisation of the surveying parties for the new line between Monckton and Winnipeg, to be continued to the Pacific coast as the Grand Trunk Pacific. It is this line which is interrupted near Quebec

by the failure of the great cantilever bridge while under construction. Mr. H. W. Lanigan wrote on the organisation for the collection and transport of grain in the wheat area. As assistant manager of freight traffic on the Canadian Pacific Railway at Winnipeg he has an intimate knowledge of that subject. The policy of the Canadian Government is to forbid the owners of elevators to trade in wheat and to restrict them to the duties of collecting and despatching, much as railways are restricted to the work of carriers. The Government undertakes the inspection and grading of the wheat, and performs this work with extreme care, so that the wheat is sold by the farmer and bought by the ultimate purchaser strictly by grade, not by sample. That is to say, the quality of the wheat having been determined by the Government inspector, the price paid per bushel is the current price for that quality. The system is too complex for more than reference here, but the advantage both to farmer and purchaser of an authoritative determination of quality is obvious.

Besides the papers we have referred to, which are all mainly of Canadian interest, three electrical papers were contributed by Prof. Marchant, Prof. Thornton, and Mr. E. A. Watson respectively, all dealing with three-phase transmission lines. Other papers were by Sir John Thornycroft, on skimming boats; by Colonel Ruttan, the city engineer of Winnipeg, on the high-pressure water plant of the city; by Mr. C. B. Smith, on a new hydroelectric power plant now being erected by the city authorities; by Mr. C. E. Larard, on torsional tests on materialsa very elaborate and detailed paper; by Prof. Coker, on an optical method of exhibiting strain; by Mr. Dugald Clerk, on the work of the gaseous explosions committee; and by Prof. Foster, on a systematic examination of the properties of the different coals of Canada now being carried out at McGill University. We have left to the last a paper on the Panama Canal by Colonel Goethals and Sir William White's address. Colonel Goethals is engineer-in-chief and president of the Isthmian Canal Commission. The paper was a long one, and very fully illustrated by lantern-slides. Colonel Goethals himself was unable to come to Winnipeg to deliver it, but Lieut. Goethals, of the United States Army, who has been engaged on the canal under his father, gave an account of it and exhibited the illustrations. It will be remembered that the failure of the French operations was largely due to two causes, one of which was the excessive mortality among the labourers and staff from tropical fevers, and the other the violent floods of the Chagres river. Since that time the cause of tropical fevers has been traced to the mosquito, and the American engineers, with characteristic thoroughness, have extirpated the mosquito over the whole of the canal zone, thereby bringing the rate of mortality to the figure of a well-organised town in a temperate climate. The measures which have enabled them to do this are of extraordinary interest, and the results are almost romantic. The engineering difficulties, which were mainly the floods of the Chagres, mentioned above, and the enormous excavation of the Culebra ridge, have been met by a design which promises to be quite successful. The Culebra ridge is much nearer to the Pacific than to the Atlantic shore, and deep valleys run down from the divide to the Caribbean Sea, one of which carries the Chagres river. Across this an immense earthwork dam, the Gatun dam, is being constructed, forming a great lake 160 square miles in area in the centre of the isthmus. The floods of the Chagres and of the other rivers, its tributaries, flowing down these mountain valleys, can discharge themselves into this large body of water without doing any damage to the canal works, however violent the floods may be. The level of the water in the lake is regulated by a spillway, built in a natural hill which forms part of the Gatun dam, discharging below the dam into the old bed of the Chagres. The surface of the lake is 85 feet above the mean sea-level, and is reached by three locks on each side. The lake is amply sufficient to provide the necessary water for lockage and waste during the dry seasons. Lastly, this high summit-level has reduced very largely the necessary amount of excavation in the Culebra cut. Even then, however, this amounted to 150 million cubic yards. Besides photographic views of the works and machinery, there were exhibited copies of

« PreviousContinue »