well known, was French, both by claim of discovery and
by the more powerful right of possession.

Stimulated by the fame of Cabot, and ambitious to be pilots of the Meta
Incognita, that visionary channel which was to conduct European valour
to the golden Cathay and to the rich Spice Islands of the East, French
adventurers eagerly sought the coveted honours which such a voyage could
not fail to yield them, and to combine overflowing wealth with chivalric
renown. France, England, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, sent forth those
daring spirits whose hopes were uniformly crushed, either by
encountering the unbroken line of continental coast, or dashed to pieces
amidst the terrors of that truly Cimmerian region, where ice and fog,
cold and darkness, contend for empire.

Of all those heroic navigators, who would have rivalled Columbus under
happier circumstances, none were successful, even in a limited sense, in
attempting to reach China by the northern Atlantic, excepting the French
alone, who may fairly be allowed the merit of having traversed nearly
one half of the broadest portion of the New World in the discovery of
the St. Lawrence and its connecting streams, and in having afterwards
reached Mexico by the Mississippi.

Even in our own days, nearly four centuries after the Columbian era, the
idea of reaching China by the North Pole has not been abandoned, and is
actively pursuing by the most enlightened naval government in the world,
and, very possibly, will be achieved; and, as coal exists on the
northern frozen coasts, we shall have ports established, where the
British ensign will fly, in the realms of eternal frost--nay, more, we
shall yet place an iron belt from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a
railroad from Halifax to Nootka Sound, and thus reach China in a
pleasure voyage.

I recollect that, about twelve years ago, a person of very strong mind,
who edited the "Patriot," a newspaper published at Toronto, Mr. Thomas
Dalton, was looked upon as a mere enthusiast, because one of his
favourite ideas, frequently expressed, was, that much time would not
elapse before the teas and silks of China would be transported direct
from the shores of the Pacific to Toronto, by canal, by river, by
railroad, and by steam.

Twelve years have scarcely passed since he first broached such an
apparently preposterous notion, as people of limited views universally
esteemed it; and yet he nearly lived to see an uninterrupted steamboat
commun