changes and additions which would follow, would result in an expenditure of at least twenty millions of dollars; but if it could be done for ten, it would be equally impracticable as a provincial undertaking. The region traversed does not possess sufficient political influence to carry the appropriations for a tithe of the sum required; and as a commercial speculation no case could be made out for it. Although it would shorten the distance between Montreal and Lake Huron by three hundred miles over the present route, viâ the lakes and the Welland Canal, there would be no saving of time on the round trip, on account of the extra lockage and river navigation; and it would be exclusively a route for steamers, whereas the greater part of the present route is available for sail craft. On the St. Lawrence route the extra three hundred miles would be overcome by a propeller in the open lakes with an unvarying speed, night and day, of ten miles per hour; while the ten extra locks of the Ottawa route, and the more intricate river navigation worked at half-speed, would demand at least an equal loss of time. For the downward commerce only, which gives at least three tons to one of the upward, the difference is vastly in favor of the St. Lawrence, in those boats which descend the rapids, as there is in this case only the Welland Canal with twenty-seven locks against the Ottawa canals with fifty-nine. On the St. Lawrence route there is a local as well as a through business, and a choice of markets while in transitu, as well as the proximity of railways in case of interruption to the navigation. On the Ottawa there is at present only sawn lumber to fill out a cargo. But while so great an undertaking is, on the part of Canada, financially impracticable and commercially unwarrantable, the opening of this route is, as an imperial and military work, most desirable. From the remote position of the greater part, the expense of cut-stone locks of the size proposed, would make it advisable to reduce the scale and also the character

of the work. Cedar cribwork is nearly as durable as ordinary masonry in this climate; and by substituting it, filled with stones and planked water-tight, for stone-work, the Ottawa route would supply the materials and the kind of labor required. The laying of masonry can only be advantageously done for a few months in the year, and a portion of this time would be lost by high water. In some sections it would probably be found cheaper to build timber locks, if only for the purpose of reducing the cost of the future stone ones. Any increased cost of maintenance would be far less than the interest saved, and the amount so saved in interest would be an ample renewal fund. The fact that scarcely one of the hundreds of stone locks in America have proved after ten years' experience, to be properly proportioned, for the wants of commerce, would suggest the propriety of substituting timber for stone for the peculiar conditions of the Ottawa route-especially as there seems no hope for the work being carried out upon any more expensive basis.

IMPROVEMENT OF THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE.

The early and efficient commencement of this work was very much retarded by the fact that the obstructions were under separate jurisdictions, and nearly equally divided between the two provinces; and that the action of one would be of little value unless imitated by the other. Lower Canada, having control of the seaports, helped herself to the lion's share of the import duties, the only fund upon which either province could rely for internal improvements. The division of these duties was a constant source of contention between them. From 1792 to 1813, Lower Canada collected a net revenue of £642,000 sterling, of which she kept £600,000 and gave the odd numbers to her younger sister. From 1813 to 1818, Upper Canada received less than twenty-five per cent. of the net revenue collected by

Lower Canada,-and in 1820 and 1821, nothing at all; whereupon she carried her complaints to the foot of the throne, and thereafter the Imperial government assumed the collection and distribution of these revenues. The net amount received by the two provinces, in the half-century between their separation in 1791 and their re-union in 1841, was, Lower Canada, £3,445,140 sterling (or $17,225,700;) and Upper Canada, £731,834 sterling (or $3,659,173,) which may be considered the measure of the ability of the two, respectively, in carrying on their public works. Both provinces had a gradually increasing but comparatively unimportant revenue collected at their inland ports; and Lower Canada, under cover of inspection, levied a toll on scows and rafts passing Chateauguay, which, between 1808 and 1831, yielded about £6,500 (or $31,633.33.) She also claimed the excess, not only by virtue of her superior population, but on the ground that rum, the article on which the bulk of the duty was collected, was almost exclusively consumed by her; and Upper Canada was charged with having descended to whisky. Per contra, it may be stated that the quantity of rum which passed above Coteau du Lac in 1799 was about sixty thousand gallons, (which probably went to the United States as well as to Upper Canada;) and the still harder fact that a barrel of rum, the freight on which was three to three and a half dollars from Lachine to Kingston, was the well-known standard of up freight for merchandise by batteaux and Durham boats.

The action taken by the two provinces, respectively, before the Union with reference to the improvement of the St. Lawrence was as follows. As early as the session of 1795-96, a bill was introduced for the construction of both a canal and a turnpike to Lachine, by the late Hon. John Richardson, who lived to carry out those schemes at a later day. In 1805, the Legislature of Lower Canada appropriated £1,000 (or $4,000) to clear the channel of the Lachine