CANADA, DOMINION OF, a Federal Union of Provinces and Territories, comprising all the British possessions in North America, excepting Newfound land; bounded by the Arctic, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans, and the United States, including Alaska. The area in square miles of individual Provinces and Territories, since the reallotment in 1912, is as follows: Prince Edward Island, 2,184; Nova Scotia, 21,428; New Brunswick, 27,895; Quebec, 706,834; Ontario, 407,262; Manitoba, 251,832; Saskatchewan, 251,700; Alberta, 255, 285; British Columbia, 355,855; Yukon District, 207,076; Northwest s, 1,242,224; total, 3,729,665. Pop. (1911) 7,206,643; (1919, est.) 8,835,602; capital, Ottawa.
Topography.—Extending over so large a territory, Canada presents a great variety of surface. Along the Atlantic coast is a range of hills extending in land from 15 to 20 miles. About 60 miles inland, the Cobequid mountains, some reaching an altitude of 1,100 feet, extend in a line parallel to the coast from the Bay of Fundy, through Nova Scotia to the Strait of Canso. Nava Scotia is a long fertile plain. A third mountain range crosses New Brunswick from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the State of Maine. An extensive plateau intervenes between these mountains and the Cobequids. The central part of the Dominion consists of a vast undulating plain, extending W. to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. This section includes the W. half of Assiniboia and the whole of Alberta, and consists of three prairie plateaus. The E., 800 feet high, known as the Red River Valley and Lake Win nipeg region, contains about 7,000 square miles of valuable wheat land. The middle plateau has an area of 105, 000 square miles, altitude, 1,600 feet, and includes the Qu'Appelle and Assini boia river valleys. The third plateau extends 450 miles E. from the Rocky Mountains, and has an average altitude of 3,000 feet. The Rocky Mountains are the most prominent physical features of the Dominion, and stretch from Alaska to California, some of the peaks attain ing a height of 16,000 feet. Among the highest are Mt. Hooker, 16,760 feet; Mt. Brown, 16,000 feet, and Mt. Murchi son, 15,700 feet. The Canadian Pacific railroad crosses the Rockies through the Kicking Horse Pass, just S. of Mt. Mur chison, at an altitude of 5,300 feet. Be tween these mountains and the Pacific coast are the Selkirk Mountains, the Gold Range, a central plateau, and the Cascade or Coast Range. The Cascade or Coast Range is a continuation of the Sierra Nevada of California, reaches an altitude of 7,000 feet, and contains many extinct volcanoes. The Selkirk range has a glacier region of greater extent than that of Switzerland. The coasts of the Dominion have numerous indenta tions, the largest of which are the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Gulf of Georgia, the Bay of Fundy, and the Bay of Cha leurs. In the N. are many large bays or inland seas, of which Baffin Bay on the N. E., and Hudson Bay, near the center of the Dominion, are the largest. The
lakes of Canada are the most extensive in the world; besides the Great Lakes, Superior, Huron, Michigan, St, Clair, Erie, and Ontario, there are many large lakes in the Northwest Territories and Manitoba. Among these are the Great Slave, 12,000 square miles; Great Bear, 10,000 square miles; Winnipeg, 8,500 square miles; Athabasca, 2,000 square miles; and Manitoba, 1,900 square miles. The principal rivers are the Mackenzie, Copper Mine, Great Fish, Slave, Fraser, St. Lawrence, Saskatchewan, and a part of the Yukon.
Mineralogy.—Canada is very rich in its mineral deposits. The most impor tant minerals found are gold, silver, iron, copper, nickel, lead, and coal; be sides manganese, cobalt, asbestos, py rites, phosphates, building stones, mar bles, petroleum, and salt. Gold is prin cipally mined in British Columbia, Yukon Territory, and Nova Scotia, In British Columbia and Yukon Territory the deposits of the Klondike region and the Yukon and Fraser rivers are among the richest in the world. The Nova Scotia gold district extends over an area of 6,000 square miles, and the metal is i extracted from the quartz in a very fine and pure state. Gold is also found in rich deposits in the Northwest Terri tories. Extraordinary silver deposits are found in several islands on the N. shore of Lake Superior and in argen tiferous galena in Quebec, Nova Scotia, and British Columbia. Copper abounds in British Columbia, Nova Scotia, On tario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and the Northwest Territories. The copper found on the N. shore of Lake Superior, and in Ontario, is of excellent quality. Iron is found in great quantities at Hull, Ontario, in a bed 90 feet thick. This ore is magnetic, yielding 70 per cent. pure iron. Magnetite is also found in Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Silver bearing lead, tin, zinc, and bismuth are found in many places. Coal exists in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, British Columbia, and the Northwest Terri tories. The Nova Scotia and New Brunswick fields are of great extent, and the value of this output in British Columbia alone is second only to that of its gold. Anthracite is found in Queen Charlotte and Vancouver Islands. Among the precious stones of Canada are diamonds, rubies, pearls, amethysts, carnelians, chalcedonies, porphyries, ag ates, and jaspers. The total value of the mineral production in 1919 was $167,000,000. The gold production was valued at $16,275,000, the coal produc tion at $12,500,000, the silver production at $13,500,000, and the production of pig iron at $920,000. During the four years down to the close of 1919, the prices of minerals and metals were greatly enhanced, and this contributed in a large measure toward increasing the total value of the mineral produc tion. In addition to those mentioned above, other important metallic products were cobalt, copper, lead, molybdenite, nickel, zinc, graphite, gypsum, magne site, and mica.