Chapter 61
Section 61 of Great Events in the History of North and South America. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Stacey M. Great Events in the History of North and South America by Charles Goodrich.
British America. General Remarks. British America embraces not far from one equal half of the North American continent. The whole area amounts to about four millions of square miles. The Arctic Ocean bounces on the north and the Atlantic on the east.
The southern boundary is the St. Lawrence and the extended chain of lakes as far westward as the Lake of the Woods. whence the dividing line between the British possessions and the United States follows the 49th parallel of latitude westward to the Strait of Fuca and thence along its channel southwest to the Pacific Ocean. On the west, British America is bounded in part by the ocean and in part by the line of the 141st degree of west longitude. The greater portion of this immense region is a waste, uninhabited, the home of wild beasts, and the seat of eternal snow and ice. It possesses little value, except the skins and furs, which are taken from the animals that rove there.
The settlements are few, even in those parts that have been reduced into provinces, and these embrace but an inconsiderable portion of the whole region. It has not been thought important to establish regular governments in all the provinces, so-called. Such governments are established only in the Canadas, Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, New Brunswick, Prince Edward's Island, and Newfoundland. The Canadas consist of Upper and Lower, or Canada West and Canada East, and embrace the principal amount of the population and productive resources of that whole northern world. Canada East is a country of some considerable extent, measuring about 200,000 square miles,
but mostly hilly and rocky and unproductive except on the borders of the St. Lawrence. Canada West contains an area of 150,000 square miles. If its western boundary, as is generally considered, extends no farther than to the heads of the streams, which fall into Lake Superior, The climate of Canada West, or Upper Canada, is less severe than that of Lower Canada. It has also some quite productive soil.
End of section 61.
