On February 4, a sleigh road about 65 miles long was completed between Gowganda and Sellwood, the present terminus of the northern extension from Sudbury of the Canadian Northern railway. A regular stage route now connects Sellwood, Phoenix, Burwash lake, Elkhorn lake, and Gowganda. However, neither the road to Elk Lake nor that to Sellwood are yet suitable for summer use, so that with the coming of spring, canoe travel must be again resorted to. It is also reported that preliminary surveys for the extension of the railway to Gowganda are in progress. Meanwhile a business centre is springing up on the east side of Gowganda lake. A sawmill was put in operation on February 3, but has since been stopped owing to its location within a government timber reservation. A town plot has been laid out at the foot of the lake and lots are now purchasable from the Ontario Department of Lands, Forests and Mines. Buildings are being erected as rapidly as the supply of material permits. A branch of the Royal Bank of Canada has been opened, and the Canadian Bank of Commerce and others propose to be on the ground within a short time. Postal connexions have been established via Sellwood, and as soon as possible a mining recorder’s office is to be opened. So swiftly are events transpiring that before the present report takes printed form, this paragraph will be in need of revision. However, only the developments of a permanent nature and of essential interest to prospective visitors to that region have been given. For the 1909 field season Gowganda will probably be the headquarters for prospecting parties in the neighbourhood of the East and West branches and Wapus creek. TOPOGRAPHY. Attention is given here rather to the details than the general aspect of the country. It exhibits the usual monotonous succession of low rocky hills and lake-containing depressions, the even horizon seen from the summit of any large hill, being only rarely notched by a prominence of unusual height. In the spring of 1908 virtually the whole area was forested, but during September the extreme dryness of the country and the unusually large number of camping parties combined to cause bush fires over much of the country between the East and West branches. The vegetable loam has been removed from extensive tracts leaving the rock formations exposed, but the charred tree trunks have fallen so as to cover the burnt districts with a ‘slash,’ which greatly impedes cross-country travel, so that what has been gained in one respect is more than counterbalanced in another. Especially is this the case in the country west of Gowganda and Obushkong lakes, and near the Forks.