tion is not perpetual, the necessity for some solution of the problem of the future arises, and the idea of an independent existence is most calculated to fire the imagination of young men. As a sentiment of national pride develops, the thought of independence grows. To have a country of one's own, of large resources and ever widening possibilities, is an aspiration natural as it is commendable among a people who have already achieved so much as the Canadians. A similar feeling seems to be taking possession of the people of Australia. It need not create surprise in England, as it simply demonstrates that the English are a dominant and self-governing race; and as soon as British colonies develop proportions sufficiently great to enable them to stand alone, they are ready to accept the responsibilities of national life, and are unwilling forever to be tied to the apron-strongs of the Mother-land. This implies no lack of regard for the parent State; on the contrary, the interest in and affection for the home country shows no sign of diminution. does not indicate want of parental regard when he creates a home for himself and assumes the duty of providing for himself and his family. It is natural and proper that this step should come in the case of the individual; it is not less so in the case of such large communities as Canada and Australia. If those who are concerned in the scheme of concentrating the powers of the English race, and making the forces of the English-speaking people at home and abroad a unit for the common glory and the common strength, addressed themselves to the work of securing enduring alliances with those great colonies which shall hereafter establish an independent existence, it would be likely to prove a more practicable undertaking than anything involved in any shadowy project of federation, which presents enormous difficulties, and may prove short-lived, even if accomplished.

A man

Let it be understood, Independence has not yet approached the realm of practical politics in Canada. It has not been much considered by the masses of people. As has been already said, the present position is satisfactory, and the period has not yet been reached when Canada shall feel strong enough to stand alone. This involves difficulties and responsibilities. Besides, the present generation contains

A

many who are extremely, perhaps bigotedly, attached to Britain and British rule, and who would be unwilling to listen to any proposal involving separation. great many prejudices must be overcome before a peaceable solution can be effected on these lines. But old generations are passing away and new generations are arising; and in proportion as the country develops in population, wealth, and power these ancient prejudices will disappear, and each day will see the spirit of national pride grow stronger. In debating societies, where young men of intelligence meet to discuss public questions, the development of a glowing sentiment of national life is plainly discoverable, and when, upon the platform, any public inan of advanced views hints at an independent nationality, he is sure to be greeted with applause. The germ has been planted, and the idea is manifestly growing in the heart of young Canada.

It is too soon to say to what extent this feeling will spread, and how soon it may reach the stage of practical action. Nothing has occurred of late to give it any direct impetus. Any friction between the Canadian Government and the Colonial Office might call the full strength of the independence sentiment into formidable existence, but this does not seem likely to occur. Therefore one can but form general opinions as to the trend of events. Granted that the colonial relation is to terminate some day, it is not too much to say that independence seems, at present, the most probable solution.

There is no necessity for haste. Things are moving on wonderfully well at present. Canada has been building great railways, and expending large sums in developing the country. The period has now been reached when she can adopt a restand-be-thankful policy for a time. Many there are who form an exaggerated idea of the cost of national life. Representatives will have to be maintained at foreign courts, consuls located and paid in all quarters of the globe where our commerce extends. The naval strength of the country would have to be considerably augmented. All these involve heavy annual expenditures. At present, having regard to the interest on the public debt, the revenue and expenditure of the country under the existing tariff nearly balance, but the population is increasing and will con

tinue to increase rapidly. The wealth and resources increase even more rapidly, and, therefore, in a short time, the revenue will far exceed the amount now obtained, and additional annual expenditure can be easily provided for. The cost of a diplomatic and consular service is not a very great item to a country whose annual revenue is now close upon forty millions of dollars; so that these initial difficulties stand a fair chance, in a short time, of being overcome. The question of defence, which in Europe is such a formidable one, does not present the same difficulties in America. North America is practically divided between the United States and Canada-both English-speaking countries, and happily free from the entanglements of European diplomacy. While each great power in Europe is compelled to expend the best part of its treasure upon the maintenance of huge military and naval armaments, the United States, which is larger and wealthier than any of them, has a national police of about 25,000 men She has no need of more. She stands in no danger of invasion, and the civil authorities are able to maintain order throughout the country. Canada, if she became an independent state, would have but one neighbor, and that one without a standing army, and without any thought of military aggression. Therefore an army and expensive fortifications would be needless. Up to a recent period the people of the United States have seen no great utility in a navy, and allowed the warships which were called into service during the civil war to fall into decay. But of late it has come to be recognized that in a great nation like the States, possessing a commerce which extends over the world, it is a matter of just pride as well as national wisdom to have a well-equipped and efficient navy, which will be ready at all times to maintain the honor of its flag in foreign waters. Such a navy is now being built, and in the course of a few years it will be discovered that the United States navy ranks among the best in the world. Canada, if she assumes the burdens of national life, would have to adopt a similar course, and this involves considerable outlay, but she would be free from the necessity of wasting her resources on expensive military armaments. It is the advantage which North American civilization has over European.

The people of Great Britain, however much they may be disposed to rely upon their own pluck and resources for maintaining the national interests and honor at home and abroad, can view with complacency the creation of an effective navy by the United States as well as Canada. Blood is thicker than water, and whatever little family jars may now and then occur between those great English-speaking peoples, if the day should ever come when British interests and honor were in real peril, owing to European combinations, depend upon it the star-spangled banner, floating proudly from the masts of American warships, would be found floating beside the glorious old Union Jack. This, perhaps, sounds too pretty, but it is not Utopian. In all parts of the United States we hear unpleasant things said about Great Britain. Party politicians are not above seeking votes by appealing to anti-British sentiment. But this is, after all, only skin deep. We can afford to quarrel with our dear relations, and make them the butts of our most polished sarcasm when they and we are prosperous; but in the hour of their adversity and peril we must always come to their rescue. so far as Canada is concerned, whatever future is in store for her, or however soon she may choose to float her own flag, generations and centuries would be too short to efface from the hearts of her sons the indelible traces of universal affection. Her ships and her men would always be at the service of Britain in the hour of need.

But

One serious difficulty will confront the Canadian people in the event of their adopting in lependence the form of Government. Other things being equal, the limited monarchy is the cheapest and least troublesome. After the one hundred years' experience of the United States, not a single Canadian is convinced that an elective executive with supreme power during his term of office is comparable, as a system of government, with a Constitutional Sovereign governing according to the advice of Ministers, responsible every hour to Parliament and the people. Besides, there are tremendous objections to the turmoil, excitement and unrest inseparable from frequent Presidential elections. But, on the other hand, the atmosphere of America is not favorable to crowned heads. A violent prejudice

against Monarchies in America prevails among the masses in the United States. The same idea permeates the leading public men in that country. While Canada has a right to do as she pleases, it is not to be forgotten that the relations existing at all times between Canada and her great neighbor, are a matter of vital importance. It is necessary for us to be on friendlyon cordial terms with her. Our interests are now closely identified in a thousand ways, and, if independent, they would become still more so. In trade, in tariff arrangements, and in many other ways, Canada cannot afford to be indifferent to American views and policy. It is certain that if Canada resolved any time within the next twenty or forty years to establish an independent existence, formed a government upon the British system, and invited a prince of the Royal blood to occupy the throne, such a step would create an unfavorable impression in the United States. The people of the United States would be very glad to see Canada independent, but they would not be pleased to see a monarchy established on this Continent. Dom Pedro was always well treated by the United States, but his presence as a monarch was never welcome. When he was bundled off to Europe minus his crown, the American people were delighted. There is a prejudice on this continent against the idea of sovereign and subject. Equal citizenship is the regnant sentiment, and the man who is Chief Magistrate of sixty millions of people for four years, possessing greater power than any constitutional monarch in the world, when his term expires, steps down among his fellow-men, and takes his place among citizens exactly as if he had never filled any great office whatever. With the ideas held by most of the great English-speaking race of North America, it is really doubtful if a monarchy could be long maintained. And yet the majority of the Canadian people are not in love with Republicanism. To a practical statesman, this question of the form of government will be one of the most trying problems, if independence ever becomes a living po

litical issue.

Some there are who are oppressed with the fear that if Canada were cut off from the protecting power of Great Britain she would become at once the victim of American aggression. The unfriendly course pursued by the United States Government

in relation to the fisheries and seal-taking in the Behring Straits, is instanced in support of this apprehension. But the wisest and most far-seeing will not be alarmed by these imaginary fears. It would be necessary, at an early stage, to have all questions relating to trade, fisheries, navigable waters, and other matters of common interest settled upon some fair basis, and then public opinion in the two countries would enforce the spirit of the Convention. The people of the United States have never been inclined to be aggressive toward Canada, nor would they be unfriendly to an independent Canada. What is distasteful to many of them is to see growing up beside them a great country owning allegiance to a foreign sovereign, and thus in danger of becoming imbued with European rather than American ideas. There is no motive on the part of the American people for hostility toward Canada. They have abundance of territory and ample scope for development, and so long as they saw growing up beside them, and sharing with them the control of the continent, an enlightened nation with ideas similar to their own and with aspirations in the direction of civilization, liberty, and peace, what more could they wish? could they wish? Besides, if it came to that, in a few decades the Canadian people would be in a position to resist any aggression, and to maintain their rights. God spare us forever the horrors and wickedness of war; but if it must come, it is the northern climes which have given to the world its invincible soldiers.

To sum up, Canada is prosperous, contented, and happy. She may have errors and evils in her administration, but the remedy for these is in the hands of her people. She is growing, and will continue to grow. She is loyal to the Empire, but cannot afford to be always a colony. She may become part of the Empire under a general confederation of the Englishspeaking communities scattered throughout the world. And she may be absorbed in her great neighbor. But the stronger probabilities are that she will eventually take her place among the nations of the world with splendid prospects of greatness and power. In which case, and in any case, her people will never forget the great nation from whence they derived their origin, and whose qualities implanted in them constitute their strongest hope of success and glory.- Fortnightly Review.

I.

THE earth had been inhabited for about twenty-two million years, and its vital history had been divided into six progressive periods. The primordial age, or formation of the first organisms (infusoria, zoophytes, echinodermata, crustaceans, molluscs-a world of the deaf and dumb and almost blind), had taken not less than ten million years to go through its different phases. The primary age (fish, insects, more perfect senses, separate senses, rudimentary plants, forests of horse-tails and of tree ferns) had then occupied more than six million years. The secondary age (saurians, reptiles, birds, forests of coniferæ and of cycadaceae) in order to accomplish its work, required two million three hundred thousand years. The tertiary age (mammifers, monkeys, superior plants, flowers, fruits and seasons) had lasted half a million years. The primitive human age, the time of national divisions, of barbarism and of militarism, had filled about three hundred thousand years; and the sixth age, that of intellectual humanity, had reigned for nearly two million years.

During that long succession of centuries the earth had grown older and the suu had become colder. In the beginning of the ages the terrestrial globe was entirely covered by the waters of the ocean. Upheavals caused first islands, then vast continents, to emerge; the surface of evaporation diminished in extent; the atmosphere was saturated with less vapor, and could not so well preserve the heat received from the sun; so that a gradual decrease of temperature was brought about. During the first human age three-quarters of the globe were still covered by water and the temperature remained high. But from century to century a portion of the rain water penetrated through the soil to the deep rocks and returned no more to the ocean, the quantity of water diminished, the level of the sea was lowered, and the screen of atmospheric vapor afforded only an insufficient protection to the nocturnal radiation. There resulted a slow, centurylong decrease in temperature; and then a spreading of the ice, which at first covered NEW SERIES.-VOL. LIII., No. 5.

only the high mountains and the polar regions, but little by little invaded the temperate regions and insensibly lowered the line of perpetual snow.

On the other hand, the sun, the source of all light and all heat, radiating perpetually without an instant of cessation, in the centre of cold, obscure and empty space, slowly lost the calorific power which caused the earth to live. Of an electric and almost bluish white, saturated with incandescent hydrogen, during the geological periods which witnessed the appearance of terrestrial life, it gradually lost that dazzling whiteness, to acquire the color, perhaps apparently warmer, of glittering gold, and such was its real color during the first three hundred thousand years of human history. It then became yellower and even reddish, consuming its hydrogen, oxidizing itself, metallizing itself. This slow transportation of its photosphere, the increase of its spots, the diminution of its protuberant eruptions, brought about a correlative decrease in the emission of its heat.

In consequence of these various causes the terrestrial temperature had, from century to century, become lower. The geographical aspect of the globe had metamorphosed itself, the sea having several times taken the place of the land, and vice versa, and the extent of the sea having considerably diminished, and been reduced to less than a quarter of what it was at the advent of humanity. The seasons which had begun in the tertiary age had perpetuated themselves through the centuries, but with a decreasing intensity for the summer heat. Climates insensibly approached each other near the equator; the glacial zones (boreal and austral) inexorably forced back the temperate zones to the place of the ancient torrid zone. Warm valleys and equatorial regions alone were habitable. All the rest was frozen.

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From century to century humanity had attained forms of exquisite beauty, and no longer worked materially. A network of electricity covered the globe, producing at will all that was needed. It was then a unified race, entirely different from the rude and heterogeneous races that had

characterized the first period. Doubtless the absolute equality dreamed of by the poets had not been attained, and there were still superior and inferior beings, seekers and indifferent men, active and inactive men, but there were no more scandalous unfortunates nor irremediable miseries.

About the year 2,200,000 after Jesus Christ, the last great focus of human civilization shone in the centre of equatorial Africa, in the brilliant city of Suntown, which had already been several times raised again from its ashes. It was more than a hundred thousand years since the spots where Paris, London, Rome, Vienna, and New York had stood were buried beneath the ice.

The capital of this aristocratic republic had attained the last limits of a luxurious and voluptuous civilization. Leaving far behind it the childish amusements of Babylon, of Rome, and of Paris, it had thrown itself heart and soul into the most exquisite refinements of pleasure and enjoyment; and the results of progress, the achievements of science, art, and industry had, during several centuries, been applied to raising all the joys of life to their maximum of intensity. Electricity, perfumes, music, kept the senses in a state of overexcitement, so that under the brilliant light of enchanting nights, as beneath the veiled shadows of the day, the nervous system could no longer find a moment's rest, and about their twenty-fifth year men and women dropped dead of total exhaustion. Perceiving the increasing coldness of the planet and the approach of eternal winter they had early maintained about them selves a warm and oxygenized atmosphere, milder and more exciting than the old breezes from the woods and prairies, had lived more rapidly and rushed more rashly to the inevitable end. The elegance of costumes, the beauty of forms, had gradually risen to an unexpected perfection in consequence of a passional selection, which seemed to have no other object than immediate happiness. Wives no longer became mothers unless by accident. Besides, some of the women of the lower classes alone remained in condition to undertake the dutics of motherhood, fashion having for some time been able to suppress the necessity in the upper social spheres.

Then it was seen that the women of the

lower classes were the first to feel the deadly effects of invading cold, and the day came when it was recognized that amid the blind enjoyment of pleasure no woman was a mother or could become one. They no longer desired the inconveniencies of maternity, which had so long been left to the inferior women, and they reigned in all the splendor of their unblemished beauty. It was only when a law was passed that the entire fortune of the republic would be given to the first woman who would give birth to a child, that they understood the irreparable extent of the misfortune that had befallen the last inhabitants of the earth.

Doubtless the end would not have long delayed its coming, the sterilized soil being henceforward incapable of feeding its children. But they were deluding themselves with the thought that perhaps by some ingenious proceeding it would become possible to put off the fatal period, to gain time; and who knows, they said, if the climate may not become better, and the sun again smile on the unfortunate planet.

But recriminations, regrets, sorrows, reproaches, accusations, despair-all were now superfluous. Life had been, if not dried up at its source, at least rendered irremediably unfruitful. A special congress of the last surviving members of the Medical Academy produced no satisfactory result. They disputed violently, each member being accused by his neighbor of having lent himself to the spreading of that insane fashion; they nearly came to blows; as the issue of the meeting the President of the Academy and the chief of the protectors were even compelled to quench their mutual anger by a duel with swords; and more than a year was spent in physiological and political discussions without obtaining any result.

But a youth, the last of that race, young Omegar, born in the lower ranks of society, came with his mother, already advanced in age and a rare survivor of the mothers, and before the assembled representatives recalled the improvidence of the governors, stigmatized the public immorality, pointed out to them the general folly of which the human race was the victim, and demanded that the last constructed electric aerostat made in the government workshops should be put at his disposal. He engaged to conduct an expedition over the whole of the equatorial zone which still re