On January 1, 1880, the South Eastern Railway began the construction of a railway across the ice from the north side of the river to the station between Bellerive Park and Longueuil Ferry, across to Longueuil. The contractors were Auguste Laberge & Son, who had built the city hall, its promoters being Mr. Sénecal, A.B. Foster, Judge Mousseau, J.B. Renaud and others. On the 29th of January loaded cars were drawn across to Montreal. Next day an engine of 50,000 pounds avoirdupois crossed from Montreal. On March 15th horses replaced the engines; on March 31st twenty cars were on the ice railway, when it began to be found insecure so that the rails were removed from the ice on April 1st. In September the Governor General visited the exhibition at Montreal, when 50,000 persons were present. On October 1st the contract was signed for the Canadian Pacific Railway, but at midnight on December 10th it was placed before the House. On February 16th of the next year the company received its letters patent and on May 2d broke the first ground for the great transcontinental railway. On December 23d of this year Sarah Bernhardt made her first appearance here. On January 5th, 1881, the South Eastern Railway laid a railway again across the ice but it was shortly abandoned on the loss of an engine by the freight train breaking through, without the loss of life. The next year, 1882, was one of intellectual progress in the city for this year, on May 25th, the Royal Society of Montreal was formed with Sir William Dawson, principal of McGill, as president. On August 21st there were the meetings of the Forestry and Agricultural congresses and on August 23d the American Association for the Advancement of Learning again chose the city for its convention after twenty-four years’ absence. The first Montreal Winter Carnival was held in January, 1883, and was the outgrowth of a suggestion by Mr. R.D. McGibbon, an advocate of the city. One of the great features was the ice palace, which was erected in Dominion Square, a mediaeval castle of transparent crystal. The attack of 2,000 snowshoers, and the defence by the volunteers, was a great scene amid the detonation of bombshells and the interchange of pyrotechnic missles till at last the castle capitulated. After this an immense line of showshoers, each bearing aloft a blazing torch, scaled the mountain in a seemingly endless trail of fire. This has been repeated at more or less regular intervals but the fear that the ice palace would harm prospective immigrants through unnecessary fear of our bright, brisk and invigorating winter has caused the carnival pageant to fall into desuetude. Yet the carnival is but a development of the old frost fairs on the Thames, that most known being on the occasion of the visit of Charles II and the Royal Family to the Frost Fair of 1684, when the printers made a souvenir as follows: