here secured in a few months, and for about 200,000_l_. only. The "Victoria" bridge at Montreal is a very different structure. A long sheet-iron box, 9,184 feet in length, with 26 piers 60 feet above the water level, and costing from first to last 2,000,000_l_. sterling. The burning of coal had begun to affect it; but Mr. Haunaford, the chief engineer of the Grand Trunk, has made some openings in the roof, which do not in any way reduce the strength of the bridge, and at the same time get rid of, at once into the air, the sulphurous vapours arising from coal combustion. Mr. Peterson told me that their soundings in winter showed that ice thickened and accumulated at the bottom of the river. This would seem, at first sight, impossible. But experiment, Mr. Peterson said, had proved the fact, which was accounted for by scientific people in various and, in some cases, conflicting ways. May it not be that the accumulation is ice from above, loaded with earth or stones, which, sinking to the bottom by gravity, coagulates from the low temperature it produces itself? Mr. Peterson is not merely an engineer, and an excellent one, but an observant man of business. His views upon the all-important question of colonising the unoccupied lands of the Dominion seemed to be wise and far-sighted. He would add to the homestead grants of land, an advance to the settler--a start, in fact --of stock and material, to be repaid when final title to the property, were given. Taking leave of my old friends, I left Montreal at 8 p.m. on the night of September 15th, in the ordinary "Pacific Express," on which was attached Mr. Van Horn's car, in charge of James French. I went by ordinary train because I was anxious to have an experience of the actual train-working. Mr. Edward Wragge, C.E., of Toronto, an able engineer of great experience, located now at Toronto, has sent me so concise an account of the journey of this train, and of the general engineering features of the line, that, anticipating his kind permission, I venture to copy it:-- "Leaving Montreal in Mr. Van Horn's car, the 'Saskatchewan,' by the 8 p.m. train on the 15th September, we passed Ottawa at 11.35 p.m.