MEDICINE HAT, Canada, a city in the southeast corner of Alberta, 600 miles west of Winnipeg and 167 miles southeast of Calgary, in lat. 50° 2' N., and long. 40' W., and is 2,181 feet above sea-level. It is situated on the slope of the South Saskatchewan River which gives it a drainage much superior to towns on the open prairie. The city took its rise in 1883 from the advent of the Canadian Pacific Railway. It is on the main line of the railway and is the terminus of the Crow's Nest Line. For many years it remained a centre for the cattle ranching industry for which the sur rounding country was excellently suited, the chinook winds which prevail in this part of the country enabling • the horse and cattle to range in the open throughout the winter as during the summer. But the large ranches are rapidly disappearing as the land is being brought under cultivation by the homesteaders. In 1899 Medicine Hat was incorporated as a town and in 1907 as a city. As its earlier de velopment was due to ranching and then farm ing its late development is due to the rise of manufactures. Like Lethbridge it is one of the four principal coal mining centres of is prov ince but its most valuable resource s gas. It lies in the centre of one of the largest fields of natural gas on the continent. The gas was first discovered about 1885 when the Canadian Pacific Railway bored on the banks of the river to find coal deposits. The first gas well was drilled in 1890 by a company of local citizens. For many years the gas was gradually developed for domestic consumers but from 1909 it has been more extensively developed as a cheap and excellent fuel for manufacturing purposes. Both gas engines and steam boilers
heated by gas are used. The analysis of the gas is as follows: methane 99.49 per cent; hydrogen .51 per cent; B.T.U.s per cubic foot 1,100. The city has 17 gas wells with an aver age daily open flow of two million cubic feet and distributes this to domestic consumers at 15 cents and to manufacturers at 5 cents per 1,000 cubic feet. The city owns and operates its own utilities. The electric plant and the water plant are operated in conjunction, the same boilers producing the power for operating the pumps and the dynamos. The city water supply, taken from the Saskatchewan River, is passed through a sedimentation basin and filter beds and is pumped to a reservoir on a hill overlooking the city from which it is carried by gravity pressure. There is also a sanitary sewage system, the sewage being deposited in the river some distance below the city. The streets are all 66 feet wide, are all macadam ized and have been well planted with trees. The sidewalks are of cement. The manufac turing and business section is built of brick while the private residences are mostly of wood construction. There is a dry-farming demonstration farm, also a business college, a general hospital, a grain elevator, flour, lin seed-oil, rolling and planing mills, brick works, a steel plant, lumber glass works, foundries and machine shops. Pop. 9,272.