een gridironed by railways all tributary to
Winnipeg, the enormous ascent of the four Rocky Mountain ranges, rising
a mile above the sea, have been crossed by the Canadian Pacific Railway.
The giddy heights of the Fraser River Canyon are traversed, and this is
but the beginning, for three other great corporations are bending their
strength to pierce the passes of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific
Ocean. We see to-day scenes more after the manner of the Arabian Nights
Entertainments than of the humble dream that Lord Selkirk dreamt one
hundred years ago.

[Illustration: HON. JOHN NORQUAY A native of Red River Settlement.
Became Cabinet Minister in 1871, afterward Premier of Manitoba.]

The towns and cities of Manitoba have sprung up on every hand where the
railway has gone and these are but the centres of business of twenty
thousand farms whose owners have come to this land, many of them
empty-handed, and are now blessed with competence and in many cases
wealth. What a vindication of Lord Selkirk's prospectus of a hundred
years ago when he said: "The soil on the Red River and the Assiniboine
is generally a good soil, susceptible of culture and capable of bearing
rich crops." Lord Selkirk's dream is fulfilled, for his land is fast
becoming the grainary of the world. As the traveller of to-day passes
along the railways in the last days of August or early in September, he
beholds the sight of a life-time, in the rattling reapers, each drawn by
four great horses, turning off the golden sheaves of wheat and other
cereals. A little later the giant threshers, driven by steam power, pour
forth the precious grain, which is hurried off to the high elevators for
storage, till the railways can carry it to the markets of the world to
feed earth's hungry millions. When the historian recalls the statement
that the few cattle of the early settlers had degenerated in size on
account of the climatic conditions, that the shaganappi pony could never
do the work of the stalwart Clydesdale, and that nothing could result
from the straggling flock of foot-sore and dying sheep, driven by Burke
and Campbell from far-distant Missouri, we look with astonishment at the
horses now taken away by hundreds to supply with chargers the crack
cavalry regiments of the Empire, at the vast consignments of cattle
passing through Winnipeg every day to feed the hungry, and flocks of
sheep supplying wool for Eastern manufacturers to clothe the naked.

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