“That some of the smaller towns in the United States have enjoyed equal prosperity I can readily believe, from the circumstance of a large population suddenly filling up the country contiguous to them. Buffalo and Chicago, too, as cities, are magnificent and unparalleled examples of the business, the energy, and the progress, of the United States. But that Toronto should have quietly and unostentatiously increased in population in a greater ratio than New York, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, and that the other cities and towns of Upper Canada should have kept pace with the Capital, is a fact creditable alike to the steady industry and the noiseless enterprise of the Canadian people. “Although Lower Canada, from the circumstance already alluded to of the tide of emigration flowing westward, has not advanced so rapidly as her sister Province, yet some of her counties and cities have recently made great progress. In the seven years preceding 1851, the fine County of Megantic, on the south side of the St. Lawrence, and through which the Quebec and Richmond Railroad passes, increased a hundred and sixteen per cent.; the County of Ottawa, eighty-five; the County of Drummond, seventy-eight; and the County of Sherbrooke, fifty. The City of Montreal, probably the most substantially-built city in America, and certainly one of the most beautiful, has trebled her population in thirty-four years. The ancient City of Quebec has more than doubled her population in the same time, and Sorel, at the mouth of the Richelieu, has increased upwards of four times; showing that Lower Canada, with all the disadvantages of a feudal tenure, and of being generally looked upon as less desirable for settlement than the West, has quietly but justly put in her claim to a portion of the honour awarded to America for her progress.” Save and except coal, the want of which is to a considerable extent compensated by the vast stores of forest, of bog and of mineral oils in the Provinces, Canada is very rich in many minerals of the first importance. Iron is deposited in exceeding abundance in the Laurentian System--lead, plumbago, phosphate of lime, sulphate of barytes, and marbles are found in the same wide-spread formation of gneiss and limestone.