associates of a monopoly of the fur trade over a vast territory in North America, extending from Lake Superior to Hudson Bay and the Pacific Ocean. In this way that portion of British America came to be popularly known in England as "Prince Rupert's Land." The great Company existed for nearly two hundred years, had one hundred and fifty-two trading-posts, and employed three thousand traders, agents and voyageurs, and many thousands of Indians. In the bartering with the red men, the unit of account was the beaver skin, which was the equivalent of two martens or twenty muskrats, while the pelt of a silver fox was five times as valuable as a beaver. In 1869, when the Dominion of Canada was formed, England bought the sovereignty of the Company for $1,500,000 and transferred its territory to Canada. The Company still retains its posts and stores, however, and conducts throughout the Northwest a mercantile business. Far to the westward of Winnipeg spread the fertile prairies of Manitoba and Assiniboia Provinces, until they gradually blend into the rounded and grass-covered foothills making the grazing ranges of Alberta that finally rise into the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies. DAKOTA AND MONTANA. Three railways are constructed westward from Red River to the Rockies and Pacific Ocean,--the Northern Pacific and Great Northern in the United States and the Canadian Pacific beyond the international boundary. The former cross the plateau to the Upper Missouri River, and there the Northern Pacific route reaches Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, having a fine Capitol set on a hill, the corner-stone of which was laid in 1883, with the noted Sioux chief Sitting Bull assisting. This region not so long ago knew only soldiers and Indians; but there has since been a great influx of white settlers, enforcing the idea of which Whittier has significantly written: "Behind the squaw's birch-bark canoe, The steamer smokes and raves; And city lots are staked for sale Above old Indian graves."