years what had been done by their neighbors in a half-century, lost not a moment in sending out engineers to survey the ground, and ascertain as rapidly as possible the best route for the promised line of communication. In 1872 the preliminary reports were laid before the Canadian House of Commons, and the same year Sandford Fleming, the engineer-in-chief of the line to be laid down, made an extensive exploration of the districts to be traversed, which added greatly to the general knowledge of the course of the Saskatchewan, Athabasca, and other rivers west of the Great Lakes. This report has been followed by others not less important, and indeed the lengthened survey over which Mr. Fleming presides has become almost as valuable to the geographer as to the statesman and the colonist in its results.
In the month of February, 1875, the source of the Fraser River was found by Mr. E. W. Jarvis, "in a semi-circular basin, completely closed in by glaciers and high, bare peaks, at an elevation of 5,300 feet;" and we can scarcely refuse this fearless traveler a place among our heroes, when we read of nine hundred miles traveled on snow-shoes, the thermometer often being "below the temperature of freezing mercury," or learn that he "lived the last three days on the anticipation of a meal at his journey's end." This same year, 1875, was still further signalized as being that in which the Saskatchewan was first navigated by steam, for in that year a ship of about 200 tons ascended from the Great Rapid to Edmonton, 700 miles higher, and now we learn that this great river is navigated from the neighborhood of Lake Winnipeg to the base of the Rocky Mountains.
In 1879, very great advances were made by Fleming and his staff in the exploration of the outlying portions of the Dominion; and the Report presented in 1880, together with the Appendices contributed by the various members of the Survey, marks a new departure in North American geography. The extent of territory embraced in the particular expedition referred to extended from the longitude of Edmonton, east of the Rocky Mountains, to Port Simpson on the Pacific. The main object of this survey was to verify the reports of the navigability of Wark Inlet by ocean-sailing ships, and to ascertain how far the tract of country between it and the Skeena River, with the valley of the Skeena itself, were suitable for railway purposes. Its result was the indication of a choice of practicable routes in the districts examined; but the Government, for reasons which, though not obvious, were no doubt well-grounded, decided in favor of the earlier route proposed, namely, that by the Yellow Head Pass and the Burrard Inlet. Thus the
