The picturesque attractions of the Maritime Provinces, moreover, tend to make them each year a summer resort for increasing numbers of people from the United States and elsewhere. Mail routes are well extended; the postal service is good; and the improvements in navigation have included the erection of many lighthouses on the prominent headlands and in the harbours, so that the scenic panorama at night witnessed by those on or near the coast is often most fascinating, and the presence of these aids to navigation is full of practical reassurance to those who travel by water. Halifax is important not only as the capital of Nova Scotia, but as the leading seaport of Canada on the Atlantic coast. It has a magnificent harbour whose even depth is a joy to the navigator; it is curiously free from extremes of temperature, the coldest day of one average year being but eight degrees below zero (in February), the warmest day falling in early September when the mercury registered eighty-seven degrees. The evenings are always cool. The city has its citadel, its rocky areas, {64} and beside its university (Dalhousie) there are colleges doing various special work, institutions for the defective classes, and several libraries, that of the Institute of Science and History being consolidated with the Library of Parliament. In the magnitude of its exports Halifax stands next to Montreal. In its imports it ranks third, Montreal and Toronto alone taking precedence of the Nova Scotian capital. {65} CHAPTER III MONTREAL AND OTTAWA Montreal, the metropolis of Canada; Ottawa, the Capital; each a city supreme in a certain individual type; within three hours of each other by rail, are closely inter-related, as are New York and Washington in the United States. In England, and in France, the Capital and the metropolis are one; but there are certain advantages to a country when its legislative centre may be kept apart from the engulfing life of its commercial metropolis. It was one of the felicitous inspirations of Queen Victoria when she chose the little village that had been known as Bytown (in honour of Colonel By, the builder of the Rideau Canal) to be the capital of the Dominion and to be known as Ottawa. For many years the parliamentary sessions had alternated between Montreal and Quebec. The foundation stone of the new Parliament Building was laid by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII.) in 1860, when the youthful prince made his memorable tour of the Dominion and the United States. Some seven years later the first parliamentary session was held in the new capital. A most significant session it was, as it marked the date of the complete {66} federation of all the Canadian Provinces then existent and ushered in the Dominion.