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- 58 VICTORIA ILLUSTRATED.
from California to Alaska, have been large investors in, and intent for some time in the development of these properties, the extent of
which, from authentic reports, must be enormous. The assay of the anthracite is as follows :
Water 1.60
Volatile combustible 5.02
Fixed carbon 83.09
Ash 8.76
Sulphur 1.53-100
At another part of the island, and in a somewhat different formation, is a fine bituminous coal, which par-takes of the character of
cannel coal. It runs in seams varying from twelve to sixteen feet in thickness, and assays as follows :
Water 2.65
Volatile combustible 30.59
Fixed carbon 31.63
Ash 5.43-100
THE graving dock at Esquimalt is capable of safely docking a vessel five hundred feet in length. The dock, inside the inner invert,
is 450 feet long. With the caisson removed to the outer invert thirty feet is gained in the rake fore and aft, bringing the capacity
up to vessels 500 feet in length.
WHOLESALE TRADE.
THE Indians all over the continent pitched their tents on the shores of harbors and on the banks of the great rivers. Where these
encampments stood have become the sites of the great cities of to-day. In Canada, Halifax, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, Winnipeg, and
other important points were each a rendezvous for various tribes of Indians. The same is true of Victoria. The Songish Indians village
was, and is still, on the land on the opposite side of the inner harbor. When the Hudson's Bay Company moved their headquarters on the
Pacific Coast from Astoria, it was to Victoria, where they built their warehouses and their fort, in order to trade with the Indians
of the coast. The supply centre thus established by the aborigines, and later by the first traders, has always continued to be the
commercial headquarters of the province, and Victoria has grown in sympathy with the development of any portion of the country, for
it was here where miners and traders and Indians came to purchase their goods.
In the days of the gold excitement in Cariboo, there were a large number of houses established to supply the needs of the miners, who
formed the greater portion of
PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS.
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