British Columbia to Vancouver's Island, unite the Pacific with the
Atlantic.  Of the value of this line to the Dominion and the mother
country there cannot be two opinions.  The system of granting plots of
land on each side of the railway to the Company, with power to re-sell or
give them to settlers, has been found most advantageous in, as it were,
feeding the line and creating populations along its route.  The cars which
carry to distant markets the crops raised by the settlers, bring back to
them the necessaries of civilized life. 

Readers who ask with the post-office authorities, "Where is Manitoba?"
[Footnote: Pages 58, 59] may be answered that Manitoba is a province in
the great north-west territory of the Canadian Dominion, lying within the
same parallels of latitude as London and Paris.  It has one of the most
healthy climates in the world--the death-rate being lower than in any
other part of the globe,--and a soil of wondrous fertility, sometimes
yielding several crops in one year.  Immense coal-fields exist within the
province; its mountains abound with ore; and its natural wealth is
enormous. 

While the province of Manitoba formed part of the Hudson Bay Company's