Finance.—Under the terms of union with Canada, British Columbia receives from the dominion government annually a certain contribution, which in 1905 amounted to $307,076. This, with provincial taxes on real property, personal property, income tax, sales of public land, timber dues, &c., amounted in the year 1905 to $2,920,461. The expenditure for the year was $2,302,417. The gross debt of the province in 1905 was $13,252,097, with assets of $4,463,869, or a net debt of $8,788,228. These assets do not include new legislative buildings or other public works. The income tax is on a sliding scale. In 1899 a fairly close estimate was made of the capital invested in the province, which amounted to $307,385,000 including timber, $100,000,000; railways and telegraphs, $47,500,000; mining plant and smelters, $10,500,000; municipal assessments, $45,000,000; provincial assessments, $51,500,000; in addition to private wealth, $280,000,000. There are branch offices of one or more of the Canadian banks in each of the larger towns.
History.—The discovery of British Columbia was made by the Spaniard Perez in 1774. With Cook's visit the geographical exploration of the coast began in 1778. Vancouver, in 1792-1794, surveyed almost the entire coast of British Columbia with much of that to the north and south, for the British government. The interior, about the same time, was entered by Mackenzie and traders of the N.W. Company, which in 1821 became amalgamated with the Hudson's Bay Company. For the next twenty-eight years the Hudson's Bay Company ruled this immense territory with beneficent despotism. In 1849 Vancouver Island was proclaimed a British colony. In 1858, consequent on the discovery of gold and the large influx of miners, the mainland territory was erected into a colony under the name of British Columbia, and in 1866 this was united with the colony of Vancouver Island, under the same name. In 1871 British Columbia entered the confederation and became part of the Dominion of Canada, sending three senators and six (now seven) members to the House of Commons of the federal parliament. One of the conditions under which the colony entered the dominion was the speedy construction of the Canadian Pacific railway, and in 1876 the non-fulfilment of this promise and the apparent indifference of the government at Ottawa to the representations of British Columbia created
strained relations, which were only ameliorated when the construction of a transcontinental road was begun. In subsequent years the founding of the city of Vancouver by the C.P.R., the establishment of the first Canadian steamship line to China and Japan, and that to Australia, together with the disputes with the United States on the subject of pelagic sealing, and the discovery of the Kootenay and Boundary mining districts, have been the chief events in the history of the province.
Authorities.—Cook's Voyage to the Pacific Ocean (London, 1784); Vancouver, Voyage of Discovery to the Pacific Ocean (London, 1798); H.H. Bancroft's works, vol. xxxii., History of British Columbia (San Francisco, 1887); Begg's History of British Columbia (Toronto, 1894); Gosnell, Year Book (Victoria, British Columbia, 1897 and 1903); Annual Reports British Columbia Board of Trade (Victoria); Annual Reports of Minister of Mines and other Departmental Reports of the Provincial and Dominion Governments; Catalogue of Provincial Museum (Victoria); Reports Geological Survey of Canada (from 1871 to date); Reports of Canadian Pacific (Government) Surveys (1872-1880); Reports of Committee of Brit. Assn. Adv. Science on N.W. Tribes (1884-1895); Lord, Naturalist in Vancouver Island (London, 1866); Bering Sea Arbitration (reprint of letters to Times), (London, 1893); Report of Bering Sea Commission (London, Government, 1892); A. Métin, La Colombie Britannique (Paris, 1908). See also various works of reference under Canada.
(G. M. D.; M. St J.; F. D. A.)
BRITISH EAST AFRICA, a term, in its widest sense, including all the territory under British influence on the eastern side of Africa between German East Africa on the south and Abyssinia and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan on the north. It comprises the protectorates of Zanzibar, Uganda and East Africa. Apart from a narrow belt of coastland, the continental area belongs almost entirely to the great plateau of East Africa, rarely falling below an elevation of 2000 ft., while extensive sections rise to a height of 6000 to 8000 ft. From the coast lowlands a series of steps with intervening plateaus leads to a broad zone of high ground remarkable for the abundant traces of volcanic action. This broad upland is furrowed by the eastern "rift-valley," formed by the subsidence of its floor and occupied in parts by lakes without outlet. Towards the west a basin of lower elevation is partially occupied by Victoria Nyanza, drained north to the Nile, while still farther inland the ground again rises to a second volcanic belt, culminating in the Ruwenzori range. (See Zanzibar, and for Uganda protectorate see Uganda.) The present article treats of the East Africa protectorate only.
Topography.—The southern frontier, coterminous with the northern frontier of German East Africa, runs north-west from the mouth of the Umba river in 4° 40′ S. to Victoria Nyanza, which it strikes at 1° S., deviating, however, so as to leave Mount Kilimanjaro wholly in German territory. The eastern boundary is the Indian Ocean, the coast line being about 400 m. On the north the protectorate is bounded by Abyssinia and Italian Somaliland; on the west by Uganda. It has an area of about 240,000 sq. m., and a population estimated at from 2,000,000 to 4,000,000, including some 25,000 Indians and 3000 Europeans. Of the Europeans many are emigrants from South Africa; they include some hundreds of Boer families.
The first of the parallel zones—the coast plain or "Temborari"—is generally of insignificant width, varying from 2 to 10 m., except in the valleys of the main rivers. The shore line is broken by bays and branching creeks, often cutting off islands from the mainland. Such are Mvita or Mombasa in 4° 4′ S., and the larger islands of Lamu, Manda and Patta (the Lamu archipelago), between 2° 20′ and 2° S. Farther north the coast becomes straighter, with the one indentation of Port Durnford in 1° 10′ S., but skirted seawards by a row of small islands. Beyond the coast plain the country rises in a generally well defined step or steps to an altitude of some 800 ft., forming the wide level plain called "Nyika" (uplands), largely composed of quartz. It contains large waterless areas, such as the Taru desert in the Mombasa district. The next stage in the ascent is marked by an intermittent line of mountains—gneissose or schistose—running generally north-north-west, sometimes in parallel chains, and representing the primitive axis of the continent. Their height varies from 5000 to 8000 ft. Farther inland grassy uplands extend to the eastern edge of the rift-valley, though varied with cultivated ground and forest, the former especially in Kikuyu, the latter between 0° and 0° 40′ S. The most extensive grassy plains are those of Kapte or Kapote and Athi, between 1° and 2° S. The general altitude of these uplands, the surface of which is largely composed of lava, varies from 5000 to 8000 ft. This zone contains the highest elevations in British East Africa, including the volcanic pile of Kenya (q.v.) (17,007 ft.), Sattima (13,214 ft.) and Nandarua (about 12,900 ft.). The Sattima (Settima) range, or Aberdare Mountains, has a general elevation of fully 10,000 ft. To the west the fall to the rift-valley is marked by a line of cliffs, of which the best-defined portions are the Kikuyu escarpment (8000 ft.), just south of 1° S., and the Laikipia escarpment, on the equator. One of the main watersheds of East Africa runs close to the eastern wall of the rift-valley, separating the basins of inland drainage from the rivers of the east coast, of which the two largest wholly within British East Africa are the Sabaki and Tana, both separately noticed. The Guaso Nyiro rises in the hills north-west of Kenya and flows in a north-east direction. After a course of over 350 m. the river in about 1° N., 39° 30′ E. is lost in a marshy expanse known as the Lorian Swamp.