g
nights of winter as cheerful as day elsewhere.

In this region wonderful blasting operations are performed by
charges of solidified oxygen and hydrogen. The charges are placed
at the bottom of a 40 foot bore and exploded by a powerful electric
spark. The effect is very different from that of other explosives
which usually rend the rock into large fragments that have to
be blasted again in detail before a clearance is made, for the
oxyhydrogen charge has such terrible force that it completely
pulverizes the rock, scooping out, even in granite, a deep wide
pit of parabolic section of which the spot where the charge was
is the focus. The dust is blown out in a cloud high in the air.

Our finest and largest cities are Halifax, St. John's, Rimouski,
Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Saulte Ste Marie, Port
Arthur, Winnipeg, Brandon, Edmonton, New Westminster and Victoria.
Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg each contain more than 2,000,000
inhabitants, while the others range between 500,000 and a little
over 1,000,000. At Halifax is one of the greatest car depots in the
world, and here the traveller can step on board a car for London,
Rome, Jerusalem, Bombay, Cape Town, Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland,
etc. St. John's, Fredericton and Campbelltown are large cities,
the latter being a great rendezvous for pleasure-seekers in summer.
Rimouski is a manufacturing centre and a large car depot. Cars
spring from here to Tadousac, Lake St. John's, Lake Mistassinie
and Hudson Bay ports. Quebec retains much of its old-world
picturesqueness while keeping up well with the times; its
inhabitants number about 700,000. Montreal and Toronto are without
doubt the most magnificent cities in the Dominion, perhaps in the
world. They are both famous for the grandeur of their buildings.
In them, for the most part, each block is a complete structure and
not a conglomeration of little buildings of all shapes and sizes, a
two-storey house next to a four-storey one, and so on. Thus, among
a number of blocks a pleasing harmony in architectural styles is
obtained, which is a golden mean between the rigid uniformity of
some new cities and the antique irregularity of old ones. Winnipeg
is generally reckoned to contain the finest brick buildings to be
seen anywhere; many blocks in brick may be seen of eight and nine
storeys in the grandly decorated modern style. Victoria has grown
into fame by its immense trade with the old Asiatic countries. The
a