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Bible Encyclopedias
Ontario
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or a province of Canada, having the province of Quebec to the E., the states of New York, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota to the S., Manitoba to the W., and the district of Keewatin with James Bay to the N. In most cases the actual boundary consists of rivers or lakes, the Ottawa to the north-east, the St Lawrence and its chain of lakes and rivers to the south as far as Pigeon river, which separates Ontario from Minnesota. From this a canoe route over small rivers and lakes leads to the Lake-of-the-Woods, which lies between Ontario, Minnesota and Manitoba; and English and Albany rivers with various lakes carry the boundary to James Bay. From Lake Temiscaming northwards the boundary is the meridian of 79° 30'.
Physical Geography
Ontario extends r000 m. from E. to W. and more than 700 m. from N. to S., between latitudes 55° and 42°, including the most southerly point in Canada. Its area is 260,862 sq. m. (40,354 water), and it is the most populous of the provinces, nine-tenths of its inhabitants living, however, in onetenth of its area, between the Great Lakes, the Ottawa and the St Lawrence. This forms part of the plain of the St Lawrence, underlain by Palaeozoic limestones and shales, with some sandstone, all furnishing useful building material and working up into a good soil. The lowest part of the plain, including an area of 4500 sq. m. lying between elevations of ioo and. 400 ft., was covered by the sea at the close of the Ice Age, which left behind broad deposits of clay and sand with marine shells.
The south-western part is naturally divided into two tracts by the Niagara escarpment, a line of cliffs capped by hard Silurian limestones, running from Queenston Heights near the falls of Niagara west to the head of Lake Ontario near Hamilton, and then northwest to the Bruce Peninsula on Georgian Bay. The tract north-east of the escarpment has an area of 9000 sq. m. and an altitude of 400 to 1000 ft., and the south-western tract includes 15,000 sq. m. with an elevation of 600 to 1700 ft. In the last petroleum, natural gas, salt and gypsum are obtained, but elsewhere in southern Ontario no economic minerals except building materials are obtained. Covering the higher parts of the south-western Palaeozoic area in most places are rolling hills of boulder clay or stony moraines; while the lower levels are plains gently sloping toward the nearest of the Great Lakes and sheeted with silt deposited in more ancient lakes when the St Lawrence outlet was blocked with ice at the end of the glacial period. The old shore cliffs and gravel bars of these glacial lakes are still well-marked topographical features, and provide favourite sites for towns and cities. London, for example, is built on the old shore of Lake Warren, the highest of the extinct lakes; and St Catharines, Hamilton and Toronto are on the old shore of Lake Iroquois, the lowest. The Niagara escarpment mentioned above, generally called "the mountain" in Ontario, is the cause of waterfalls on all the rivers which plunge over it, Niagara Falls being, of course, the most important; and in most cases these falls have eaten their way back into the tableland, forming deep gorges or canyons like that below Niagara itself, through which the water pours as violent rapids. Between the Palaeozoic area near Ottawa, and Georgian Bay to the north of the region just referred to, there is a southward projection of the Archaean protaxis consisting of granite and gneiss of the Laurentian, enclosing bands of crystalline limestone and schists, which are of interest as furnishing the only mines of "Old Ontario." From these rocks in the Ottawa valley are quarried or mined granite, marble, magnificent blue sodalite, felspar, talc, actinolite, mica, apatite, graphite and corundum; the latter mineral, which occurs on a larger scale here than elsewhere, is rapidly replacing emery as an abrasive. Several metals have been mined also, including gold, copper, lead, iron and arsenic; but the amounts produced have not been great, and many of the mines are no longer working.
While all the larger cities and most of the manufacturing and farming districts of the province belong to old Ontario, there is now in process of development a "New Ontario," stretching for hundreds of miles to the north and north-west of the region just described and covering a far larger area, chiefly made up of Laurentian and Huronian rocks of the Archaean protaxis. The rocky hills of the tableland to the north long repelled settlement, the region being looked on by the thrifty farmers of the south as a wilderness useless except for its forests and its furs; and unfortunate settlers who ventured into it usually failed and went west or south in search of better land. Gradually, however, areas of good soil were opened up, in the Rainy river valley, near Lake Temiscaming and elsewhere, and mines of various kinds were discovered, as the Canadian Pacific railway and its branches extended through the region, and at length the finding of very rich silver mines attracted world-wide attention to northern Ontario. In the better explored parts along the great lakes and the railways, ores of gold, silver, nickel, cobalt, antimony, arsenic, bismuth and molybdenum have been obtained, and several important mines have been opened up. Gold has been found at many points across the whole province, from the mines of the Lakeof-the-Woods on the west to the discoveries at Larder Lake on the east; but in most cases the returns have been unsatisfactory, and only a few of the gold mines are working. Silver mines have proved of far greater importance, in early days near Thunder Bay on Lake Superior, more recently in the cobalt region near Lake Temiscaming on the east side of the province. Silver Islet mine in Lake Superior produced in all $3,250,000 worth of silver, but this record will no doubt be surpassed by some of the mines in the extraordinarily rich cobalt district. The veins are small, but contain native silver and other rich silver ores running sometimes several thousand ounces per ton, the output being 5,500,000 oz. in 1906. Associated with the silver minerals are rich ores of cobalt and nickel, combined with arsenic, antimony and sulphur, which would be considered valuable if occurring alone, but are not paid for under present conditions, since they are difficult to separate and refine. The cobalt silver ores are found mainly in Huronian conglomerate, but also in older Keewatin rocks and younger diabase, and the silverbearing region, which at first included only a few square miles, is found to extend 25 m. to the west and as much to the north. Up to the present the most important mineral product of Ontario is nickel, which is mined only in the neighbourhood of Sudbury, where the ores occur in very large deposits, which in 1905 produced 95 0 3 tons, more than half of the world's supply of the metal. With the nickel copper is always found, and copper ores are worked on their own account in a few localities, such as Bruce mines. Iron ores have been discovered in many places in connexion with the "iron formation" of the Keewatin, but nowhere in amounts comparable with those of the same formation in Michigan and Minnesota. The total mineral output of Ontario, including building materials and cement, is larger than that of any other province of the dominion, and as more careful exploration is carried on in the northern parts, no doubt many more deposits of value will be discovered. It has been found that northern Ontario beyond the divide between the Great Lakes and Hudson Bay possesses many millions of acres of arable land, clay deposits in a post-glacial lake, like those in the southern part of the province, running from east to west from Lake Abitibbi to a point north of Lake Nipigon. Railways are opening up this tract. The clay belt is in latitudes south of Winnipeg, with a good summer climate but cold winters. The spruce timber covering much of the area is of great value, compensating for the labour of clearing the land.
Lakes and Rivers
All parts of Ontario are well provided with lakes and rivers, the most important chain being that of the St Lawrence and the Great Lakes with their tributaries, which drain the more populous southern districts, and, with the aid of canals, furnish communication by fairly large vessels between the lower St Lawrence and the Lake Superior. Lake Nipigon, a beautiful body of water 852 ft. above the sea, 70 m. long and 50 m. wide, may be looked upon as the headwaters of the St Lawrence, since Nipigon river is the largest tributary of Lake Superior, though several other important rivers, such as the Kaministiquia, the Pic and the Michipicoten, enter it from the north. All these rivers have high falls not far from Lake Superior, and Kakebeka Falls on the Kaministiquia supplies power to the twin cities of Fort William and Port Arthur, while the deep water of its mouth makes the great shipping port for western wheat during the summer. The north shore of Lake Superior is bold and rugged with many islands, such as Ignace and Michipicoten, but with very few settlements, except fishing stations, owing to its rocky character. At the south-eastern end St Mary's river carries its waters to Lake Huron, with a fall of 602 to 581 ft., most of which takes place at Sault Sainte Marie, where the largest locks in the world permit vessels of 10,000 tons to pass from one lake to the other, and where water-power has been greatly developed for use in the rolling mills and wood pulp industry. The north-east shores of Lake Huron and its large expansion Georgian Bay are fringed with thousands of islands, mostly small, but one of them, Manitoulin Island, is 80 m. long and 30 m. broad. French river, the outlet of Lake Nipissing, and Severn river, draining Lake Simcoe, come into Georgian Bay from the east, and canals have been projected to connect Lake Huron with the St Lawrence by each of these routes, the northern one to make use of the Ottawa and the southern one of Trent river. The Trent Valley canal is partly in operation. Georgian Bay is cut off from the main lake by Manitoulin Island and the long promontory of Bruce Peninsula. Lakes Superior and Huron both reach depths hundreds of feet below sea-level, but the next lake in the series, St Clair, towards which Lake Huron drains southward through St Clair river, is very shallow and marshy. Detroit river connects Lake St Clair with Lake Erie at an elevation of 570 ft.; and this comparatively shallow lake, running for 240 m. east and west, empties northwards by Niagara river into Lake Ontario, which is only 247 ft. above the sea.
Niagara Falls, with rapids above and below, carry the waters of the upper lakes over the Niagara escarpment. Power from the falls is put to use in New York state and Ontario, a large amount being sent to Toronto 80 m. away. Welland canal, between Port Colborne on Lake Erie and Dalhousie on Lake Ontario, carries vessels of 14 ft. draught from one lake to the other. From Lake Ontario the St Lawrence emerges through the meshes of the Thousand Islands, where it crosses Archaean rocks, after which follow several rapids separated by quieter stretches before Montreal is reached at the head of ocean navigation. Steamers not of too great draught can run the rapids going down, but vessels must come up through the canals. All the other rivers in southern Ontario are tributaries of the lakes or of the St Lawrence, the Ottawa, navigable in many parts, being the largest, and the Trent next in importance. In northern Ontario lakes are innumerable and often very picturesque, forming favourite summer resorts, such as Lake Temagami, the Muskoka Lakes and Lake-of-the-Woods. The latter lake with Rainy Lake and other connected bodies of water belong to the Hudson Bay system of waters, their outlet being by Winnipeg river to Lake Winnipeg, from which flows Nelson river. In Ontario the Albany, Moose, Missanabi and Abitibbi flow into Hudson Bay, but none of these rivers is navigable except for canoes.
Climate
The climate of Ontario varies greatly, as might be expected from its wide range in latitude and the relationships of the Great Lakes to the southern peninsula of the province. The northern parts as far south as the north shore of Lake Superior have long and cold but bright winters, sometimes with temperatures reaching 50° F. below zero; while their summers are delightful, with much sunshine and some hot days but pleasantly cool nights. Between Georgian Bay and Ottawa the winters are less cold, but usually with a plentiful snowfall; while the summers are warm and sometimes even hot. The south-west peninsula of Ontario has its climate greatly modified by the lakes which almost enclose it. As the lakes never freeze, the prevalent cold north-west winds of North America are warmed in their passage over them, and often much of the winter precipitation is in the form of rain, so that the weather has much less certainty than in the north. The summers are often sultry, though the presence of the lakes prevents the intense heat experienced in the states to the west and south. Owing to the mildness of its winters, the south-west peninsula is a famous fruit country with many vineyards and orchards of apples, plums and peaches. Indian corn (maize) is an important field crop, and tobacco is cultivated on a large scale. Small fruits and tomatoes are widely grown for the city markets and for canning, giving rise to an important industry. The normal temperatures (Fahr.) for three points in the southwestern, eastern and north-western portions are given below: - (A. P. C.) Population. - The following table shows the population of the province: - 1 The name given to the rural municipalities.
Any town in Canada can become incorporated as a city on attaining a population of 10,000.
