One novelty we discovered, viz., that on each side along a portion of the newly-cleared ground, young saplings had been planted at regular intervals; these, we were told, were horse-chestnuts, procured from the United States expressly for the purpose of forming a double row of trees here. In the neighbourhood of York the horse-chestnut was then a rarity. Everywhere throughout the North American continent, as in the numerous newly-opened areas of the British Empire elsewhere on the globe's surface, instances, of course, abound of wonderful progress made in a brief interval of time. For ourselves, we seem sometimes as if we were moving among the unrealities of a dream when we deliberately review the steps in the march of physical and social improvement, which, within a fractional portion only of a retrospect not very extended, can be recalled, in the region where our own lot has been cast, and, in particular, in the neighbourhood where we are at this moment pausing. The grand mediæval-looking structure of University College in the grounds at the head of the Avenue, continues to this day to be a surprise somewhat bewildering to the eye and mind, whenever it breaks upon our view. It looks so completely a thing of the old world and of an age long past away. To think that one has walked over its site before one stone was laid upon another thereon, seems almost like a mental hallucination. A certain quietness of aspect and absence of overstrain after architectural effect give the massive pile an air of great genuineness. The irregular grouping of its many parts appears the undesigned result of accretion growing out of the necessities of successive years. The whole looks in its place, and as if it had long occupied it. The material of its walls, left for the most part superficially in the rough, has the appearance of being weather-worn. An impression of age, too, is given by the smooth finish of the surrounding grounds and spacious drives by which, on several sides, the building is approached, as also by the goodly size of the well-grown oaks and other trees through whose outstretched branches it is usually first caught sight of, from across the picturesque ravine. Of the still virgin condition of the surrounding soil, however, we have some unmistakeable evidence in the ponderous granitic boulders every here and there heaving up their grey backs above the natural greensward, undisturbed since the day when they dropped suddenly down from the dissolving ice-rafts that could no longer endure their weight.