THE HUDSON BAY ROUTE FROM CANADA TO ENGLAND.
The commencement of a railway which will run northwards, from the heart of the Canadian Dominion to Hudson Bay, again raises the question of a shipping route by way of Hudson Bay and Strait to England. Dr Bell of the Canadian Geological Survey, when the matter was being discussed some years ago, said that the proposed route by rail from Winnipeg to Fort Churchill, on Hudson Bay, thence by steamer to England, would be twelve hundred and ninety-one miles shorter than the Montreal route, and about seventeen hundred miles as compared with the New York route.
Port Nelson, at the mouth of the Nelson River, has been finally chosen as the terminus of the proposed railway from Winnipeg. The mouth of the Nelson is reported to be open all winter for twenty or twenty-five miles up, owing to the tide. Its average width for that distance up is about three miles. At Seal Island, twenty-five miles up, there is a capital harbour, and water enough for any ocean steamer.
Hudson Bay forms the central basin for the drainage of the northern portion of North America; and of the many rivers which flow into it from all sides, about thirty are of considerable size. The Albany and the Churchill are the longest on the western side; but the Nelson, with a course of only about four hundred miles, carries the largest body of water down to the sea, and may be ascended by small steamers for about seventy or eighty miles. Before the navigation of the bay was understood, it was usual to take two seasons for a voyage from England; and the captain who was fortunate enough to return the same year was awarded a prize of fifty pounds. Since 1884, the Canadian government has received Reports from observers stationed along the coasts of the strait and on the islands as to the navigable nature of the bay and strait. Lieutenant Gordon, in 1884 and 1885, seemed to be of opinion that the bay and strait would in ordinary seasons, so far as ice and weather considerations are concerned, be practicable for North-west trade by tolerably well-built vessels for four months. The bay is reported as navigable at all times, as it never completely freezes over; nor does the strait, the ice met with there being floe-ice from Fox’s Channel.
The Report of the Select Committee of the Manitoba Legislative Assembly in charge of this question, in 1885, was to the effect that ports on the shores of the bay are open on an average from four and a half to five months in each year to ordinary vessels, and that both bay and strait seemed to be singularly free from obstruction to navigation in the shape of shoals or reefs, and during the period of open water from storms and fogs.
Should this shipping route by way of Hudson Bay and Strait to England, prove a practicable one, even for a few months in summer, it will enable the Canadians to send us grain and produce from the great North-west at even a cheaper rate than they have been doing hitherto.
SOME NEW BOOKS.
A finely-printed volume comes to us from America. It is from the pen of Mr James Grant-Wilson, known in this country as the author of Poets and Poetry of Scotland. His new volume consists of clever and agreeably written sketches of Bryant and His Friends, including among the number such well-known names as those of Washington Irving, Richard Henry Dana, Fenimore Cooper, Fitz-Greene Halleck, Edgar Allan Poe, and others. The book is illustrated with portraits and fac-similes of handwriting.
Dickensiana, a compilation by Mr Fred. G. Kitton (London: George Redway), will have an interest for the lovers of Dickens and his works. It consists of a bibliography of the literature relating to Dickens and his writings, with extracts from the reviews of his works at the time they appeared, some of which criticisms are curious from the very opposite opinions occasionally expressed. The compilation of the book appears to have been carefully gone about.
Aberdour and Inchcolme (Edinburgh: David Douglas) is an interesting local history by the Rev. William Ross, LL.D. It contains notices of the parish and of the ancient monastery founded on Inchcolme by Alexander I. Many of the details collected from the seventeenth century records are of great interest to historical students; though the book would, we think, have been improved had the more ancient history been greatly condensed, as much of it has only the faintest connection with the immediate subject. As a whole, however, the volume is a valuable contribution to our local histories.