In looking at the great sources of wealth possessed by these provinces, our attention is at once arrested by the growing importance of the St Lawrence as an outlet to the produce, not only of the Canadas, but of a vast area of the States territory. With the exception, perhaps, of the Mississippi, no river in the world opens up so grand a highway for the industry of man as the St Lawrence, with the chain of vast lakes and innumerable rivers that unite with it in the two thousand miles of its majestic progress to the ocean. Never was there an enterprise more worthy of a great nation than that of surmounting the obstacles to its navigation, and completing the channels of connection with its tributary waters; and nobly have the people of Canada executed it. Taking into account the infancy of their country, and the amount of its population and revenue, it is not too much to say, with Mr Johnston, that their exertions to secure water-communication have been greater than those of any part of the Union, or any country of Europe. The improvements on the St Lawrence itself, and the canals connected with it, have already cost the colony two millions and a quarter sterling, in addition to the expenditure of £800,000 by the home government on the construction of the Rideau Canal. The results of this liberal but judicious outlay are already showing themselves, not only by the rapidly-increasing Canadian traffic on the St Lawrence, but by its drawing into it, year after year, a larger share of the commerce of the States. That the influx of trade from the south must ere long vastly exceed its present amount, is evident from a consideration of the gigantic projects already completed, or in course of construction, for effecting an access between the lakes and the fertile regions of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, &c., already spoken of, and thus saving the longer and costlier transit by the Mississippi. One of the Reports of the State of New York thus speaks of them:--