Champlain, the founder of Quebec, describes the Canada of his day as
beautiful, agreeable, and fertile; producing grain of every kind;
abounding in valuable trees; yielding wild fruits of pleasant flavour,
and well-stocked with fish and game. Later observation was to add to the
catalogue of its natural riches, mines of iron, lead and copper. The
early colonists, too, have recorded that the river banks were covered
with a profusion of vines so productive, that it seemed difficult to
trace all their luxuriance to the unaided hand of nature.

As a partial counterpoise to its many advantages, Canada is exposed to
extremes of temperature, alternating between heat nearly tropical, and
cold approaching polar. Owing to the clearing of the forests, and other
causes, the winter is now somewhat less harsh than in the days of the
first settlers; it is, however, still a very severe one. And yet, even
under its stern reign, Canada is not without natural charms,--its giant
river fast bound in icy chains; every stream, and lake and rivulet in the
land a sheet of sparkling crystal; every trunk, and branch, and twig
glittering in the sun as if sprinkled with diamond dust; every valley,
hill and woodland, every mountain slope and far-stretching plain wrapped
in a soft mantle of spotless snow.

Yet, with all its gifts and resources, Canada had reposed for long ages
in lonely grandeur. The chronicles of the Old World told of many a
generation gone by. They traced the rise and fall of many empires, and
the succession of many dynasties. They recorded the advance of art and
science. They contained long lists of names inscribed, some in the annals
of human greatness, some on the pages of the Book of Life. They spoke of
the glorious triumphs of the Church, and enumerated the nations gathered
within her fold, and still, on that fair land of the West, no step had