Possibly the most striking features, from a documentary point of view, of the earlier, and, indeed, the later, years of the Canadian Northern domiciliation at Toronto were the acquisition of charters, and the reception of requests for new railways in every Canadian province except Prince Edward Island. Perhaps, instead of likening the expanding process of the Canadian Northern to a magnet attracting filings, it is better to say that it was very like what movie fans frequently see when they are about to observe some event which has recently taken place in a distant part of the world. The feature is heralded by the appearance of what looks like several sticks thrown into the air--all, seemingly, without direction or intention, but presently falling into an ordered announcement which he who sits may read. That is how the Canadian Northern transcontinental system took shape. From a series of disconnected and apparently unconnectable projections of steel, hanging in suspense, a continuous track was formed, trains ran upon it, and all the organs of a great commerce began to function. We have seen how the Davis firm had the charter for the Lake Manitoba Railway and Canal Company--and did not finance it. The Manitoba South Eastern was a project that seemed still-born. We connected with Lake Superior by buying the Port Arthur, Duluth and Western--the Poverty, Agony, Distress and Want, as you may remember. Eastern connection with the prairies was effected on the legs of the Ontario and Rainy River Railway, the original authority for which was held by Port Arthur men like D. F. Burk and Jim Conmee, the latter of whom became well known as far east as Toronto through his membership of the Legislature, and the Conmee Act. There were two heralds of what was to happen in the eastern section of Ontario and in the farther West, which the uninformed onlooker supposed were peculiar phenomena indeed--the disordered offspring of some misguided promoter with an itch to lay rails which began Nowhere, and ended in a less important place. Nobody now hears of the James Bay Railway--I mean the railway of that designation, and not a railway to James Bay. Not so many years ago, though, flat cars bearing the name were seen in the Don Valley. Another railway whose name has gone the way of forgetfulness was the Edmonton, Yukon and Pacific. Not long since, a facetious writer, having the fact though not the name of this enterprise in his mind, described it as the Edmonton, Yukon and Aurora Borealis.