THE INTERCOLONIAL. A HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE INCEPTION, LOCATION, CONSTRUCTION AND COMPLETION OF INLAND AND ATLANTIC PROVINCES OF THE DOMINION, WITH MAPS AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS. BY SANDFORD FLEMING, C. E., ENGINEER-IN-CHIEF OF THE NEWFOUNDLAND, INTERCOLONIAL AND CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAYS. Montreal: DAWSON BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS; LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO. 三十 Entered according to Act of Parliament in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy-six, by SANDFORD FLEMING, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture and Statistics at Ottawa. 7. THE HONOURABLE ALEXANDER MACKENZIE, MINISTER OF PUBLIC WORKS AND PREMIER OF CANADA. SIR, As the Intercolonial Railway is now in a position to be opened for traffic, it is my duty, as Chief Engineer, to submit a final Report on its condition. A Report such as the usual course prescribes, would necessarily be professional and technical, and would be confined to a description of the results which have been effected, and a statement of the cost at which these have been attained. But the Intercolonial Railway is national in its objects and character, and to my mind it calls for more extended consideration. As the head of the Department of Public Works, and as the Minister who has directed the concluding operations on the Railway, you have been good enough to acquiesce in the view, that a barren relation of figures and detail would be insufficient and unsatisfactory. I have therefore felt it incumbent upon me to depart from the course generally followed on such occasions. I have endeavoured, in the following pages, to give the early his tory of the Railway, and to trace the causes which prevented the adoption of a direct route, and in this connection I have been led to review the negotiations which ended in the establishment of the Maine Boundary. I have endeavoured to describe the frequent fruitless attempts which were subsequently made to obtain the means of constructing the line, and the considerations which led to the adoption of the present route. In cases where the location is open to criticism, I have given a narrative of the events which enforced its determination, I have stated the principles which governed the construction of the Railway, and I have described several of the most important structures; at the same time I have briefly set forth the character of the country through which the Railway passes. Although it may be said that the present volume includes much beyond the sphere of my official duties, I venture to hope that the course pursued by me will meet with your approval, and I trust that you will believe that I have striven honestly, to place on record what has passed under my own notice, and what I have gathered from official documents and from public records. Thirteen years have passed since my first appointment as Chief Engineer, a duty assigned to me by the Imperial and Provincial Governments at the commencement of the Survey. At that period a long tract of wilderness separated the Maritime from the Inland Provinces. The Railway, which now connects them, I may venture to assert, will rank second to none on this Continent. In the embellishment of its structures it may be surpassed by the lines of the old world, but in the essentials of a Railway, it will, when entirely completed, have no superior. Some further expenditure is still necessary, but the Railway is in |