This classic Canadian history study by Agnes C. Laut is a history of the Canadian gold rush that began in 1858.

All through the sixteenth century the South Seas were regarded as a mysterious wonderworld, whence Spain drew unlimited wealth of gold and silver bullion, of pearls and precious stones. Spain had declared the Pacific 'a closed sea' to the rest of the world. But in 1567 it happened that Sir John Hawkins, an English mariner, was cruising in the Gulf of Mexico, when a terrific squall, as he said, drove his ships landward to Vera Cruz, and he sent a messenger to the Spanish viceroy there asking permission to dock and repair his battered vessels.

The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay is a Canadian history text by Agnes C. Laut. Thirty or more years ago, one who stood at the foot of Main Street, Winnipeg, in front of the stone gate leading to the inner court of Fort Garry, and looked up across the river flats, would have seen a procession as picturesque as ever graced the streets of old Quebec--the dog brigades of the Hudson's Bay Company coming in from the winter's hunt.

Early in 1849 the sleepy quiet of Victoria, Vancouver Island, was disturbed by the arrival of straggling groups of ragged nondescript wanderers, who were neither trappers nor settlers. They carried blanket packs on their backs and leather bags belted securely round the waist close to their pistols. They did not wear moccasins after the fashion of trappers, but heavy, knee-high, hobnailed boots. In place of guns over their shoulders, they had picks and hammers and such stout sticks as mountaineers use in climbing. They did not forgather with the Indians.

I love thee, O thou great, wild, rugged land Of fenceless field and snowy mountain height, Uprearing crests all starry-diademed Above the silver clouds A sea of light Swims o'er thy prairies, shimmering to the sight A rolling world of glossy yellow wheat That runs before the wind in billows bright As waves beneath the beat of unseen feet, And ripples far as eye can see--as far and fleet

To re-create the shadowy figures of the heroic past, to clothe the dead once more in flesh and blood, to set the puppets of the play in life's great dramas again upon the stage of action, -frankly, this may not be formal history, but it is what makes the past most real to the present day. Pictures of men and women, of moving throngs and heroic episodes, stick faster in the mind than lists of governors and arguments on treaties. Such pictures may not be history, but they breathe life into the skeletons of the past

I am sitting in the doorway of a house of the Stone Age-neolithic, paleolithic, troglodytic man-with a roofless city of the dead lying in the valley below and the eagles circling with lonely cries along the yawning caverns of the cliff face above.

Thirty or more years ago, one who stood at the foot of Main Street, Winnipeg, in front of the stone gate leading to the inner court of Fort Garry, and looked up across the river flats, would have seen a procession as picturesque as ever graced the streets of old Quebec-the dog brigades of the Hudson's Bay Company coming in from the winter's hunt.

"Has any one seen Eric Hamilton?" I asked. For an hour, or more, I had been lounging about the sitting-room of a club in Quebec City, waiting for my friend, who had promised to join me at dinner that night. I threw aside a news-sheet, which I had exhausted down to minutest advertisements, stretched myself and strolled across to a group of old fur-traders, retired partners of the North-West Company, who were engaged in heated discussion with some officers from the Citadel.

Peter the Great sends Bering on Two Voyages: First, to discover whether America and Asia are united; Second, to find what lies north of New Spain-Terrible Hardships of Caravans crossing Siberia for Seven Thousand Miles-Ships lost in the Mist-Bering's Crew cast away on a Barren Isle