CANADA.

THE province of Canada embraces a wide and extremely diversified section of country, extending between latitude 42° and 53° North and longitude 640 and 90° West, and comprising an area of 346,863 square miles. It is bounded on the north by the Hudson's Bay Territory; on the west by Lakes Superior and Huron; on the south by Lakes Erie and Ontario; and on the east by the River and Gulf of St. Lawrence, New Brunswick, and a portion of the United States, viz. the States of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

The province of Canada, called the province of Quebec prior to 1791, was in that year divided into the two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, under distinct governments, but in 1840 they were re-united by an Act of the Imperial Legislature. Lower Canada formerly was comprised between 45° and 52° of North Latitude, embracing an area of 205,853 square miles, exclusive of the surface occupied by the River St. Lawrence, and a portion of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, embracing 52,000 square miles. The romantically situated city of Quebec contains a population of 50,000. It is the great shipping depôt of the Canada lumber trade, and has also a large trade in ship building.

The island of Montreal, thirty-two miles long by ten broad, lies between the Ottawa and St. Lawrence, and contains the city of Montreal, the commercial emporium of Canada, with a population of 70,000. The soil on this island, as well as on Isle Jésus, is accounted good, and many of the farms are conducted on scientific principles, and with great profit, in consequence of their proximity to the local market of the city of Montreal.

To the south of the St. Lawrence are the populous districts of Gaspié and Bonaventure, a tract more properly belonging to New Brunswick than to Lower Canada.

The section of the country known by the name of the Eastern

Townships, and which are properly so called, comprises that great extent of habitable and fertile country between the Chambly and Chaudiére Rivers in one direction, and between the frontier lines of Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire, and the Seigniories of the Districts of Montreal, Saint Francis, Three Rivers, and part of Quebec, in the other. This territory promises to become the richest, the most populous, and the most flourishing part of Lower Canada; not only on account of its climate, milder than that of the shores of the St. Lawrence, of the immense extent of excellent and fertile soil which it includes, and of its abundant streams of water, but also because, while bordering on the territory of the United States, it is traversed by the main lines of communication between the two countries: namely, the railroad from Montreal to Richmond, and from Richmond to Portland, on the Atlantic; and by that from Richmond to Quebec, forming part of the Grand Trunk line. The six great counties of Sherbrooke, Stanstead, Shefford, Missisquoi, Drummond, and Megantic, contain about 4,886,400 acres of land.

Upper Canada is divided into three great natural sections, viz.: the eastern, central, and western-the eastern containing the triangular territory between the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa-the central having nearly a square form, extending from Lake Ontario on the south to Lake Nipissing on the north, and stretching from the latter lake to the Ottawa eastward-and the third, comprising an irregular triangular peninsula, inclosed nearly by Lakes Ontario, Erie, St. Clair, and Huron, and the channels by which these are connected. The counties of Glengary, Stormont, Dundas, Leeds, and Grenville, Prescott, Russell, Lanark, Renfrew, and Carlton, are situated in the eastern section. The counties of Frontenac, Lennox, Addington, Hastings, Prince Edward, Northumberland, Durham, Peterborough, the four Ridings of York and Sincoe, comprise the central section. The western section, which includes the counties of Halton, Wentworth, Lincoln, Welland, Haldimand, Norfolk, Middlesex, Kent, Essex, Huron, Waterloo, and Oxford, is advancing with great rapidity, and attracting the greater share of the emigration, and is, in many respects, the garden of Western Canada. Its surface is remarkably level, containing scarcely a hill, and its interior is traversed by several fine rivers-the Welland, Grand River, Thames, and Sydenham.

The St. Lawrence is the pride of the Canadian people, and the highway down which are poured, to the ocean, their surplus pro