The people of the United States, as well as other countries, have been so long accustomed to see Canada figure on their maps as a narrow strip, with scattered villages and towns along the St. Lawrence and the great lakes, with innumerable smaller lakes and rivers, that it is difficult for them to realize that a rival nation, with a territory vastly larger than the whole American Union, has risen upon the borders of this very same Union, and, like a young giant, set about making a glorious future for itself; building up great manufactories, leveling the mountains, filling up the valleys, bridging the rivers of the continent, digging canals, constructing thousands of miles of railroad whereby to consolidate its empire and make accessible its boundless national resources of timber, mines, and agricultural lands.