Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/824

Rh 794 MONTREAL the Laurentian Hills, the Adirondacks, and the Green Mountains of Vermont. On the east side the city occupies the slope towards the river St Lawrence, which has here a breadth of from one to two miles. Two islands, the Nun s and St Helen s Isles the latter rising to a height of 150 feet, beautifully wooded, and laid out as a public park occupy the bed of the river immediately below the Lachine Falls, and between them the river is spanned by the great Victoria Bridge. This wonderful triumph of engineering skill is a tubular iron bridge supported on twenty-four piers of solid masonry, with the terminal abutments of the same, and measuring 9184 feet in length. The river descends at the rate of 7 miles an hour at the point where it is thus crossed ; and the Plan of Montreal. 1. M Gill College. 2. Christ/church Cathedral (Episcop.) 3. Church of the Gesu. 4. St Peter s Cathedral. 5. Railway Station. 6. Notre Dame. 7. Champ de Mars. 8. Court House. 9. City Hall. 10. Bonsecours Market. piers are constructed with a view to resist the enormous pressure of the ice in spring. Near at hand the towers, spires, and domes of numerous churches and public build ings rise from the general mass of houses. The wharves and docks are crowded with shipping during the season of navigation, for the St Lawrence is navigable to Montreal by the largest ocean steamers. But immediately above the city the river is impeded by a natural dyke of trap and limestone which here arrests the waters in their descent, forming the Lake St Louis at a height of 44 feet above the level of Montreal harbour. The river here forces its way through a channel of about half a mile wide, with a rapidity of about 18 miles an hour, forming the Lachine or St Louis llapids. Owing to the immense volume of water concentrated in a narrow channel, steamers drawing ten feet of water are safely navigated down the rapids, but these necessarily present an insuperable barrier to the ascent of the river. This is accordingly surmounted by means of the Lachine Canal, which, commencing at the port of Montreal, passes round the falls by a series of locks, in a course of nine miles, to Lake St Louis, opposite the Indian village of Cauglmawaga. The fall of water in the canal furnishes water-power for saw-mills, boiler and engine works, sash, blind, door, edge-tool, and other factories, established on its banks. Sugar -refining has also been carried on here with great profit. Woollen and cotton mills, silk factories, a large rubber factory, rope and cordage works, boot and shoe factories, tc., are likewise organized on an extensive scale. The water supply of Montreal is derived from the river above the city ; and, after passing along an open canal 5 miles in length, it is raised to a reservoir excavated out of the solid rock on the east slope of the Mountain, 205 feet above the level of the harbour. The circumstances attendant on the foundation of Montreal, and the marked contrasts in its mixed population of French and English, give a peculiar character to its religions and benevolent institutions. This has led to the multiplication of churches, colleges, convents, and religious and charitable foundations, and to a rivalry in the zeal of their promoters, one result of which is seen in the scale and imposing character of many of their buildings. The Metropolitan Cathedral of St Peter, designed to reproduce on a reduced scale the chief features of St Peter s at Rome, was projected by Bishop Bourget after the destruction of his church and palace in the great fire of 1852. It occupies a prominent site in Dorchester Street, at the corner of Dominion Square ; and, when surmounted by the projected dome and finished in front with its classic facade, it will form a striking feature in the general view of the city. The parish church of Notre -Dame, on the Place d Armes, affords accommodation for 10,000 worshippers. The Jesuits Church is another large church, elaborately painted in the interior. Near it is the College of St Mary. Christchurch Cathedral (Protestant) is a fine specimen of Decorated Gothic, built externally of the native limestone, but with the chief facings and carvings of the exterior and the whole of the interior of tine Caen stone. It was erected under the direction of Bishop Fulford, the first Anglican bishop of Montreal, to whose memory a memorial cross, after the model of the Queen Eleanor crosses, has been erected on the south side of the cathedral. The other churches of the various Protest ant denominations include St George s, Anglican, St Andrew s and St Paul s (Presbyterian), St James Street Methodist Church, the Church of the Messiah, Unitarian, &c. The Hotel Dieu, founded in 1644 for the cure of the sick, now occupies a building at the head of St Famille Street. A body of professed sisters and novices perform the duties of nursing and attendance, and upwards of 3000 sick persons are annually received into its wards. The order of the Grey Nuns, founded in 1737, have built a new hospital in Guy Street. The professed sisters of this religious community, numbering at present 310, receive under their care the aged and infirm and orphan and foundling children of the French Canadian population. They also undertake the care of various asylums and schools in different parts of the city. Mont real has also a General Hospital, founded in 1822 ; a Protestant House of Industry, the Mackay Institution for Deaf-Mutes, the Protestant Orphan Asylum, Infants Home, &c. The curiously mixed character of the population of Montreal is further shown in its separate daily and weekly newspapers in the English and French languages, and in its various national societies, of St George, St Andrew, St Patrick, St Jean Baptiste, and New England, each confining its charitable operations to those of the nationality which it represents. There are two theatres in Montreal, but the Roman Catholic clergy have systematically discountenanced the stage, and the diverse languages have further tended to limit the numbers who patronize the drama. Among the chief civic buildings is the city hall, built in the modern French style, with lofty mansard roofs, and a central pavilion. It affords accommodation for all the municipal offices, including the waterworks and fire alarm departments, the recorder s court, the police office, and for the meetings of the city corpora tion, which consists of a mayor and twenty-seven aldermen. Three aldermen are elected by each of the nine wards, one of whom retires every year. The court house, situated close to the city hall, between the Champ de Mars and Jacques Cartier Square, is a hand some classical building where all the law courts hold their sittings : and accommodation is provided for the Advocates Library, which numbers upwards of 10,000 volumes, including a fine collection of books in the department of old French civil law. Bonsecours Market in St Paul Street is a large structure surmounted by a dome, which forms a prominent feature in every view of the city. When it is crowded with the peasants bringing in their country produce, and by the French Canadian city populace as purchasers, as is the case especially on Tuesdays and Fridays, the scene is very striking to a stranger. Foremost among the educational institutions is the university of M Gill College, founded by James M Gill, a Scotchman, who in the later years of the 18th century engaged in the north-west fur trade,