proceeding east and west of its limits, so every subdivision and section of these should be conducted, both administratively and operatively, in faithful conformity to the general principle of the whole thereby to preserve a pervading spirit of unanimity and intelligence through every department of the work, and enable authority to govern the entire line with as much ease as it might regulate and direct any separate and particular section.

:

In unison with the arrangements already submitted in our observations on the "Convict Force," a chief inspector of division, with a due complement of assistant engineers, might be appointed to each division, whose ordinary residence should be at the central station : thereby constituting that post the head-quarters of the division his office to be assisted by the counsels and executive co-operation of the colonels-commanders attached to his division, who should periodically visit him, at short intervals, from the stations they should occupy east and west of his central quarters: carrying with them their reports, and bearing back with them his instructions. The line should be served throughout with a well-appointed commissariat, and properly organized train of waggon-drivers and mounted couriers: to keep up constant supplies and communication with every portion of the division, from the centre to the two termini.

Let us now digress to the general line for a moment, to propose that an inspector-general-in-chief should be appointed, in supreme authority over all these, whose head-quarters should be in the centre of the entire line; and whose duties should be aided by a board of scientific persons promoted to office near him, whose councils should be occasionally assisted by the periodical visits of

the various other chief inspectors of division, from each of the seven departments of the line, with whom means of communication by land and water should be immediately instituted. Every river and lake, of which there are so many intervening in the proposed course of the line, might be made available, to its full extent, by a liberal supply of serviceable boats for the transport of men and material, until the road should be completed.

We have already premised that each of the divisions should comprehend an average length of 400 miles; and should commence its noviciate with a complement of 6,800 men (including guards and superintendents), and 1,333 women-not too many, we presume, even as a primary instalment, when we consider the multiplicity of works and immensity of space which they would have to cover. Having detailed in our last chapter the projected distribution of these forces through the different sections of a division, we will now enter into some more particular minutiæ connected with their allocation and direction.

Supposing the various forces to arrive on their allotted grounds, when favoured by summer and the natural dryness of the climate, so as best to encounter the discomfort of imperfect shelter until adequate habitations could be constructed the convict body of "Force Labourers," under charge of the "Pioneer Rifle Guards,” should always be detached in advance of the march of "Civil Fencibles," and "Free Labourers," furnished with a requisite supply of tents and camp equipage. After clearing the way, and removing impediments, the former ought to dress the selected ground for temporary encampment, and there pitching tents, and constructing other shelter, as commodiously as haste might permit, they

A A A A-Wooden enclosure walls, with outer and inner ditches.

B B B B-Soldiers' Barracks.

H E-Soldiers' Galleries.

F F-Convicts' Sleeping apartments.

D-Outer working gallery.

G-Inner working gallery.

should again prosecute their own march in advance, leaving a guard behind them to receive the rear march into camp, and forward tents, baggage, and other material, necessary for the construction of encampments further on: they themselves being furnished with light tents and vehicles for their own accommodation.

Meantime, as soon as each body should be posted at its appointed station, and recovered from the fatigues of the journey, its members should immediately proceed to fell timber, if growing on the spot; or to collect it, if the location should be bare of wood, from the boats and rafts floated to them by the rivers; upon the banks of which, for this and other purposes, every station should, if possible, be situated. Thus governed by a given plan directed by competent overseers, all hands should be applied to the completion of their temporary villages or towns. The buildings, at first, ought to be only composed generally of double cabins of two compartments each, formed of rough logs, and "chinked" according to the custom of constructing such temporary dwellings in America. This term means stopping the interstices between log and log of the walls, or partitions, with mortar, clay, hair, moss, and other fibrous mixtures in use. These dwellings should be ranged in opposite rows, so close to each other on one side as to admit of a common roof to them all, which should be so abruptly sloped as to admit little or no snow to lodge a construction by which the tenants of such cabins would have, as it were, a covered alley between them, under which they could work in bad weather; while they could have an open space or street in front for general use; with small plots for kitchen gardens to each cabin, in the centre, composed of narrow stripes, for which proper seeds should be furnished to the settlers.