West.''

The Bank Clearings for the last six months of the year 1908, were $38,526,454.00, an increase of $3,284,363.00 over the last six months of 1907. The clearings for the last week of February, 1909, show an increase of 81.5 per cent,. The Customs receipts for 1908, were $426,425.00.

Three daily papers, four weeklies and three monthlies, are published in Calgary.

Calgary was founded in 1882, and incorporated as a city two years later. The population in 1901, was 6,557; to-day it is more than 25,000. The city water supply is of the best, and is brought from the Rockies via the Bow River. Steam coal may be obtained in Calgary, at $2.75 per ton upwards, natural gas has been discovered and negotiations are in progress for the development of water power on the Bow River. Calgary's railway facilities are excellent and a rapid growth and a prosperous. future for the city are well assured.

BANFF*

Banff is situated at an altitude of 4,521 feet, and is the station for the Canadian National Park and Hot Springs. This park is a National Reservation of 5,732 square miles, embracing parts of the valleys of the Bow, Spray and Cascade Rivers, Lake Minnewanka and several noble mountain ranges, and beyond the "Divide,'' the Yoho valley and the country to the west and south of it. The park is the largest in the world, being nearly half as large again as the famous Yellowstone Park in the United States. No part of the Rockies exhibits a greater variety of sublime and pleasing scenery, and nowhere are good points of view and features of special interest so accessible, since many good roads and bridle-paths have

The notes on Banff are taken, by permission, from the annotated TimeTable of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.

been made. The railway station at Banff is in the midst of impressive mountains. The huge mass northward is Cascade Mountain (9,825 ft.); eastward is Mount Inglismaldie, and the heights of the Fairholme subrange, behind which lies Lake Minnewanka. Southeastward from Inglismaldie, in the same range of the Fairholmes, the sharp cone of Peechee (called after an Indian chief), closes the view in that direction; this is one of the highest mountains visible. To the left of Cascade Mountain, and just north of the track, rises the wooded ridge of Stoney Squaw Mountain, beneath which lie the Vermilion lakes, seen just after leaving the station. Up the Bow, westward, tower the distant, snowy, central heights of the Main range about Simpson's Pass, most prominently the square, wall-like crest of Mount Bourgeau. A little nearer, at the left, is seen the northern end of the Bourgeau range, and still nearer, the razor-like back of Sulphur Mountain, along the side of which are the Hot Springs, and on whose summit, at 8,030 ft., an observatory has been established. The isolated bluff southward is Tunnel Mountain, while just behind the station, Rundle Peak, 9,665 ft., rises sharply. so near at hand as to cut off all the view in that direction. Just before reaching the station, the train passes along a large corral of 800 acres in which are a number of buffalo, the last specimens of the monarchs of the plains. Plans are now arranged by means of which a collection of bears will be placed in a corral in some central location in the park. The village of Banff is a short distance southwest of the station, on the hither side of the Bow, and the Canadian Pacific Railway Banff Hotel is about a mile further on. A steel bridge takes the carriage-road across to the magnificent hotel, built by the Railway Company, on an eminence between the foaming falls in the Bow and the mouth of the rapid Spray River. This hotel, which has every modern convenience and

luxury, including baths supplied from the hot sulphur springs, is kept open from May to October, and thither people from all lands flock in numbers. It is most favorably placed for health, picturesque views, and as a centre for canoeing, driving, walking or mountainclimbing. There are also a sanitarium and hospital inthe village, and a museum of more than local interst has been established by the Government. Eight miles from Banff, is Lake Minnewanka, on which a fine launch has been placed. There is capital fishing, the trout being of extraordinary size. Wild sheep (the big-horn) and mountain goats are occasionally to be seen on the neighboring heights. Some extraordinary fossil remains and markings of mammoth pre-historic creatures are found on the mountain slopes surrounding this lake, as well as on Cascade Mountain. At the upper end of the lake is the valley of Ghost River, a strange region where the mountain rivulets gurgle off into subterranean reservoirs and the granite walls are pitted with caves. Between Banff and the lake is Bankhead, where are located the anthracite mines, operated by the Canadian Pacific Railway, whose output will shortly provide the country as far east as Winnipeg with fuel. The hot springs are at different elevations upon the eastern slope of Sulphur Mountain, the highest being 900 ft. above the Bow. All are reached by fine roads, commanding glorious landscapes. The more important springs have been improved by the Government, and picturesque bathing houses have been erected and placed under the care of attendants. In one locality is a pool inside a dome-roofed cave, entered by an artificial tunnel; and adjacent, another spring forms an open basin of warm sulphurous water. Since the opening of the railway, these springs have been largely visited, and testimony to their wonderful curative properties is plentiful. Twenty miles south of Banff is Mount Assiniboine, the