Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/859

* MONTREAL. 771 MONTREAL. the conlluciuc ul the livirs Saint Lawrence and Ottawa. 1)20 miles Irom the sea l).v the course of the Saint Lawrence. (Jlap: Quebec, Co). It occupies a low tract of land, about two miles wide, between the Saint Lawrence River and -Mount Hnyal, a mountain rising to an elevation of 000 feet above the sea, which gives a picturesque background to every view of the city, the summit being laid out as a public park of 4G0 acres. Fine residential streets lie in ter- races u|)oii the slojie. TIkisp in the lower part of the town are narrow, irregular, and ding}', but are undergoing gradual improvement. The chief business streets are Saint James, Saint Paul, Saint Lawrence, McGill, Bleury, Craig, Xotre Dame, and Saint Catherine, the latter once an aristocratic centre. The French section is on the east, the dividing line being Saint Lawrence Street. Montreal is about four and one-half miles long, and contains many public squares and parks, such as Dominion, Victoria (with a fountain and a statue of Queen Victoria), Saint Louis, and the Viger Gardens, Logan and Mount Royal parks. The buildings are chiefly of gray limestone, quarried in the vicinity, and include Notre Dame, built in 1824. opposite the site of an earlier church ( 1072) ; it is one of the largest cathedrals in .Vmerica, being 255 feet long by 145 feet wide, and can accommodate over 10.000 peo- ple. Its towers are 220 feet high and have a noted chime of bells. Near it is the seminary of Saint Sulpice, the oldest building in Montreal (1684). Other important edifices and places of interest are the court house, city hall, custom house, the old Chateau de Ramezay ( 1705), for a time the official residence of the British Govern- ors, and headquarters of the American C^neral and Commissioners in 1775-70: the Champ-de- ilars, the old parade ground of the British troops; .Jacques Cartier Square, with a statue of Nelson (1808) ; the Church of Saint Gabriel, the oldest Protestant, church (17'.12) ; Bonsecours Mar- ket, 500 feet long: the Church of Notre Dame de Bon Secours: Saint Patrick's Church: the Cathedral of Saint .Tames, known connnonly but erroneously as Saint Peter's, a reproduction on a small .scale of Saint Peter's in Rome (1808) ; Christ Church Cathedral, Episcopal, a fine ex- ample of Gothic architecture: Saint .James's Methodist Church : Church of Notre Dame de Lourdes ( 1874 ) ; the .Jesuit Church, noted for its frescoes; Saint Andrew, Saint Bartholomew, Saint Paul's, Saint George, Erskine Presbyterian, and Church of the Messiah. Among other points of interest are the Fraser Institute, a public library and art gallery : the Protestant and Ro- man Catholic deaf and dumb asylums; an asylum for the blind, and the great convent of the Holy Names of .Jesus and JLary. The most important educational institutions are McGill University (q.v.). founded in 1S24 by a bequest of James McGill, also containing the Redpath Ijibrary, an observatory, and a natural history museum; the Roman Catholic Laval ITniversity : and the College de Montreal or Petit SSminaire. There are Presbyterian, Weslevan, and ot.her col- leges, academies, schools, and libraries; a French school of medicine and sunrerv; Grey Nunnery, a hospital and orphan asylum : Nazareth Asylum for blinil children; the Hotel Dieu. founded in 1(544 by Mile, stance, an original settler of Mon- treal; the Royal Victoria, the Montreal General, and the Western hospitals; and the Victoria "Vol. XIII.— 5u. Rifles Armory. There are publications printed in French and English, the leading one being The (Jazetti; founded in 1778 and continuous since 1795. Montreal's wealth and importance accrued from the fur, lumber, and grain trade of the Northwest. It is now the metropolis of Canada, and the chief port of entry; its fine harbor, with quays, wharves, and docks of solid masonry ex- tending for miles, lies at the head of ship navi- gation, and acconnnodates the largest vessels afloat. The construction of canals has enabled -Montreal to command the navigation of the Great Lakes. The Lachine Canal was opened in 182."). the Grand Trunk Railway in 1852; the Victoria tubular bridge, built over the Saint Lawrence in 1854-59, was reconstructed and en- larged as a truss bridge in 1898-99; the Cham- plain and Saint Lawrence Railway, from La- ]uairie to Saint John's, was opened in 1886. and the Canadian Pacific the same year. Various steamships run to transatlantic ports, and many railway lines connect the city with all jiarts of Canada and the United States. The L^nited .States is represented by a consul-general. The e.vports in 1901 amounted to .$59,708,154, and the imports to .1-04,372,300: in 1890 they were respectively .$31,660,216 and .$45,934,406. "in 1901. 742 ocean- going vessels and 8450 coasting vessels with a total of 3,136.234 tons cleared the customs. The exports and manufactures include lumber, grain, flour, apples, butter, phosphates, cheese, boots, shoes, woolens, hardware, glass, carriages, sleighs, drugs, paints, steam-engines, locomotives, boilers, printing-pres.ses, sewing-machines, mu- sical instruments, paper, etc. There are also saw, flour, and rolling mills, brass and iron foundries. lead works, etc.; gas and electric light plants, electric street railroads, and a costly sys- tem of water-works. There are many banks, the Bank of Montreal claiming to have the largest capital of any bank in North America, and to rank as the fifth in the British Empire. The climate presents great extremes of heat and cidd, the temperature reaching 90° in summer, and sometimes sinking to 20° below zero in winter. The winter carnivals attract thousands of vis- itors to engage in the gay skating tournaments, the snow-shoe parades, the masquerades, the to- bogganing, and the storming of the ice castle (generally erected in Dominion Square) by torch- light, amid the display of gorgeous pyrotechnic devices. Montreal's first record dates from 1535, when .Jacques Cartier ascended the Saint l^awrence and found an Indian village named Hochelaga at the foot of the mountain, a name still preserved in a portion of the modern city. It was inhabited by the Hochelaga or Beaver Indians, active traders, who traversed the Saint Lawrence from their district to Ottawa. When Champlain vis- ited the spot in 1603 the Indian town had van- ished, as the result of a war between the Ilurons and the Iroquois; and here he established, eight years later, a trading post. In 1642 Paul de Chomedy, Sieur de Jlaisonneuve, for 'La Com- pagnie de Montreal,' founded the 'Ville Marie-de- Montreal' on romantic ideas of religion and patriotism. The town was engaged in struggles with the Troquois for many years, and in 1665 the Afarquis de Tracy arrived from France with the famous rarignan-Salif>res Regiment, which broke the power of the red men. In 1672 the