VANCOUVER ISLAND AND BRITISH COLUMBIA. THEIR HISTORY, RESOURCES, AND PROSPECTS. BY MATTHEW MACFIE, F.R.G.S. FIVE YEARS RESIDENT IN VICTORIA, V. I. LONDON: LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN. DEDICATED (BY PERMISSION) ΤΟ THE RIGHT HON. EDWARD CARDWELL, M.P. HER MAJESTY'S PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES. PREFACE. THIS VOLUME is the first that has been published in this country containing full and classified information on the various topics relating to the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia. It is hoped that, at the same time, comprehensiveness has not been lost sight of in the grouping of details. A few other works have already appeared; some of which give valuable statistics bearing upon the physical and political geography, climatology, flora, fauna, and aborigines of these important dependencies. Some little has also been written on their principal resources; but all the books that have hitherto issued from the English press on the subject put together fail, in the author's estimation, to exhibit the commercial, timber-exporting, mining, and agricultural capabilities of the colonies with the minuteness and prominence they merit. Had these points been discussed, however, in the most satisfactory manner, it is now several years since any extended account of Vancouver Island and British Columbia has been submitted to the British public, and the progress of these thriving settlements in that brief and eventful interval necessarily renders previous volumes, in many respects, out of date. a |