The geological intervention of radioactivity is believed by physicists to have a determining influence upon the development of subterranean resources as well as upon the surface features of the earth and the formation of mountain chains. Vitality is another ever-increasing phenomenon, but the bewildering abundance of life that confronts the student of nature is no more inciting to research than the mystery of metals deposited far in the ground. The natural resources of Canada are so vast that even yet, as Dr. W. J. A. Donald asserts, "the greater part of three million six hundred thousand square miles of the Dominion is still _terra incognita_ as regards its mineral resources, or even its geological features." During the present war all enterprises are, more or less, and, indeed, largely, in abeyance in the Dominion; but the present is always compact of the {131} future, nor can any strictly dividing line be drawn. "Even in the midst of the greatest tragedies," said Sir Clifford Sifton in his address before the Canadian Club of Montreal on January 25, 1915, "while we are trying to do our duty in the greatest crisis of life, we still must speak, act, think, and do in reference to the ordinary affairs of life; and the better we think and act and do in regard to these affairs, the better we shall act in these crises and the better we shall discharge our duty." Canada will never be numbered with those nations regarding whom the words were said of old, "Where there is no vision the people perish." There is no lack of vision in the Dominion. The splendid loyalty of Canada, not only to the Empire, but to the cause of righteousness, is beyond all estimate in words; as the Right Honourable Sir Robert L. Borden has so finely expressed, there can be only one conclusion regarding the present tragedy of conflict. "To overthrow the most powerful and highly organised system of militarism that ever existed must necessarily entail terrible war and perhaps a protracted struggle. We have not glorified war or sought to depart from the paths of peace; but our hearts are firm and united in an inflexible determination that the cause for which we have drawn the sword shall be maintained to an honourable and triumphant issue."