explored by him in 1910 is especially valuable. He states:—“In the region we traversed, only five species, namely,—spruce, poplar, tamarack, birch and jackpine have any possible commercial value, and of these, speaking generally, only one, spruce, is large enough for sawmill purposes or railway tie material. The poplar, birch and pine are invariably too short, spindly, limby and crooked for any use save fuel or pulpwood, and what mature tamarack there was is now standing dead from insect attack. We did not find over two hundred green tamarack above ten inches in diameter all summer. This remnant is on the northeast end of Bear island in Sipiwesk lake. Black spruce is easily the predominant species in all that region, and, except on very occasional well-drained tracts of spruce-flat type, where it reaches ten to fourteen inches in diameter at breast height, it is a small spindly tree, only four to eight inches diameter breast height at maturity, useless even for second class ties. This is the condition in which the jackpine also occurs. The white spruce, therefore, is the only species large enough to furnish construction timber, sawlogs, or even railway ties, and the supply is very limited. In the first place, this species occurs only on the best drained spots, such as river and lake margins or on the small islands; in the second, the fires of the past one hundred years have destroyed nearly all the old stand. To sum up then, only a mere fraction of one per cent. of the area we surveyed now carries merchantable timber—a fringe along lower Mitishto and upper Minago rivers, and on a few of the islands and peninsulas in the larger lakes—as shown on the map. There is probably enough timber available to build the rough construction work of the Hudson Bay Railway. “From the mere size of the country and the density of the oncoming second growth stands, the possible supply of firewood is enormous. Because of its remoteness from settlement, however, it has no present commercial value. Owing to the killing by bark beetles of practically all the larger tamarack (or possibly killed by larch sawfly previous to beetle attack, though we found no trace of the sawfly), there is almost no green pile timber of any value in the whole region. Hence, unless by importation, the only choice left is between dead tamarack and the largest of the close-grained black spruce. The latter would remain sound in soil contact for about ten or twelve years, which would satisfactorily cover the first initial experimental stage in the operation of the new road. “Just at the present time, within the area we inspected, the timber is too young and small upon the whole to be cut at a profit even for pulpwood. But in the absence of fires for twenty years the now eighty-year-old stands of four to eight-inch timber can be profitably cut for this purpose, and it is probable that within the next quarter of a century part of the ENORMOUS ENERGY NOW RUNNING FREE