Until the first decade of the twentieth century this vast territory was looked upon as valuable only for its timber, of which it had nearly two hundred million acres. It was thought to be nothing but rock and swamp, covered with ice the greater part of the year. Its only inhabitants were Indian hunters, Hudson’s Bay Company fur traders, and lumbermen who cut the trees along the streams and floated them down to the Great Lakes. Then a new line of the Canadian Pacific Railway was put through, the great nickel mines were discovered, the silver and gold regions were opened up, and the Dominion and provincial governments began to look upon the land as an available asset. Exploration parties were sent out by the Ontario government to investigate the region from Quebec to Manitoba. They reported that a wide strip of fertile soil ran through the wilderness about a hundred miles north of the route of the Canadian Pacific Railway. This land is of a different formation from the rest of northern Ontario. It is a clay loam, from which the region gets its name, the Great Clay Belt. This belt is from twenty-five to one hundred miles wide, and it extends westward from the Quebec-Ontario boundary for three hundred miles or more. It is estimated to contain as much land as West Virginia. The Clay Belt is just north of the height of land of the North American continent, which divides the rivers flowing north from those that flow south. The streams on the southern side of the ridge flow into the Great Lakes, and some even to the Gulf of Mexico. On the north slope they flow into Hudson Bay, or by the Mackenzie and other rivers into the Arctic Ocean. The Clay Belt has seven good-sized rivers and is well watered throughout. [Illustration: If there is a moose within sound of the hunter’s birch-bark horn, he will think it one of his brethren calling and be so foolish as to come near and be shot. These animals are still plentiful in Canadian forests.] [Illustration: The trout-filled streams of interior Ontario and Quebec are a Mecca for the fishermen of both the United States and Canada. In the tributaries of the St. Lawrence the fresh-water salmon also provide good sport.] In midsummer the Clay Belt is as hot as southern Canada or the northern part of the United States. As a matter of fact, Cochrane, its chief town, is fifty miles south of the latitude of Winnipeg. Everything grows faster than in the States, for owing to the high latitude the summer days are fifteen or sixteen hours long, the sun rising a little after three and setting between eight and nine. The clay loam is particularly fitted for growing wheat, and certain districts have yielded forty bushels an acre. Oats, barley, and hardy vegetables are raised successfully. The country looks prosperous, and there are well-filled barns and fine herds of livestock as evidences of its productivity.