ton. He crossed the bar, and named the great
stream after his own ship, the _Columbia_. Five months afterwards
(October, 1792) Lieutenant BROUGHTON, of the Vancouver expedition,
entered the Columbia from the sea, explored it upstream for a hundred
miles, and formally took possession of it for the King of Great
Britain. The news of this discovery reached Alexander Mackenzie (no
doubt after his return from his overland journey to the Pacific
coast), and he at once jumped to the conclusion that the powerful
stream he had discovered in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, and had
partially followed on its way to the Pacific, must be the Columbia. As
a matter of fact it was the river afterwards called Fraser.

If you look at the map of British North America, and then at the map
of Russian Asia--Siberia--you will notice a marked difference in the
arrangement of the waterways. Those of the Canadian Dominion, on the
whole, flow more eastwards and westwards, or at any rate radiate in
all directions, so as to constitute the most wonderful system of
natural canals possessed by any country or continent. On the contrary,
the rivers of Siberia flow usually in somewhat parallel lines from
south to north. Siberia also is far less well provided than British
North America with an abundance of navigable rivers, streams, and
great lakes. Therefore the traveller in pre-railway days wishing to
cross Siberia from west to east or east to west was obliged to have
recourse to wheeled traffic, to ride, or to walk. Consequently, until
the beginning of the twentieth century, the "exploitation" (or turning
to useful account) of Siberia was a far more difficult process than
the development of North America, once the question of British
_versus_ French or Spanish was settled. Siberia at one time was almost
as rich in fur-bearing animals as British North America; yet so
difficult was transport (and so severe were the rigours of the
climate) that the Russians, once they reached the shores of the
Pacific at the beginning of the eighteenth century, began to stretch
out their influence to the opposite peninsula of Alaska mainly on
account of the fur trade. For it was easier and less expensive to
bring furs from Alaska round Cape Horn, or the Cape of Good Hope, to
Europe than to convey them overland from eastern Siberia. Then, also,
the Chinese market was becoming of importance to the fur trade.
Already Mackenzie, at the end of the eighteenth century, is found