Mr. Robinson took us in the afternoon for a drive across the prairie to Sir Donald Smith's model farm at Silver Heights, where there are three splendid specimens of the now extinct buffalo, some of the few left of those vast herds that used to roam the prairie. The farm takes its name from the adjoining wood of silver poplar trees.
C. visited the venerable French Archbishop Taché. He told him that he came out forty-six years ago, and that it took him then sixty-two days to travel from Montreal, what he can now perform in sixty-two hours. He showed the inkstand from which his uncle, the Premier of Quebec, Sir Etienne Taché, signed the Confederation Act of Canada.
Thursday, August 27th.—Before leaving Winnipeg Major Heward gave us an early inspection at the barracks of the Mounted Infantry. They are smart and well-mounted on brancho horses, reared in the west. We also inspected the chief of the three fire stations. They have a chemical steamer. In this the water is mixed with carbolic acid gas. Fire being supported by oxygen, the carbolic gas, when thrown on it, extinguishes the supply of oxygen, and with it the fire. The fire bell, in sounding, throws open the stable door and the horses trot out by themselves and place their necks under the suspended collar, which descends and is fastened by a patent bolt.
The west-bound trains all stop at Winnipeg for five hours to allow time for the colonists to visit the Railway and Dominion Land Offices, and to obtain information respecting selections of lands. The land in the North-West Provinces has now been surveyed and allotted thus for twenty-four miles each side of the line. In a township of thirty-six sections of 640 acres, or one square mile to each section, the Dominion retains roughly one half, whilst the C.P.R. retains the other. There are two sections reserved for school purposes, that the value of the land may make the schools free and self-supporting, two sections for the Hudson Bay Company, and the Canada North-West Land Company have bought others. The diagram on page 53 will show the division of sections.
The station was crowded with large parties of emigrants, as many settlers leave their families here, whilst choosing their sections further west. There are bundles of bedding, tin cooking utensils, with bird cages and babies in promiscuous heaps.
As we pass out of the station we see the enormous plant and rolling stock of the C.P.R., which has here its half-way depot between Montreal and Vancouver. They have twenty miles of sidings, which are now full of plant waiting to be pressed forward, to bring down the harvest to the coast.
TOWNSHIP DIAGRAM.
The above diagram shows the manner in which the country is surveyed. It represents a township—that is, a tract of land six miles square, containing 36 sections of one mile square each. These sections are subdivided into quarter sections of 160 acres each.