extended to the colony, was continued in force. This arrangement continued till 1791, when Canada was by an act of the imperial parliament divided into two provinces, Upper Canada and Lower Canada. To each a popular assembly and a legislative council, nominated by the crown, were given. The crown was empowered to confer hereditary titles upon residents of the colony. The legislature was to meet once every year. The governors, appointed by the crown, might reserve for the pleasure of the sovereign any bill which the legislature might pass. Authority was given to reserve one seventh of the public lands for the support of a Protestant clergy, the apparent intention being to constitute endowments of church of England rectories. For this purpose some 3,400,000 acres were set apart; but very few of them were ever actually applied to the endowment of rectories, the instructions to this effect of the imperial government having been disobeyed; and in 1854 an act of the provincial legislature was passed to devote the whole of these lands to secular purposes. Thus the idea of establishing a state church in Canada was relinquished. Disputes regarding the interpretation of the constitutional act arose. One party contended that Canada was in possession of a transcript of the British constitution, and that the advisers of the governors in matters of state should be responsible to the commons house of assembly. The other party denied the necessity of any accord between the executive council and the legislative assembly. The attempt to make the local government responsible to the popular branch of the legislature was not successful till 1841, the year after an imperial act had been passed to unite the provinces under one administration and one legislature. The definite establishment of a responsible government in 1841 was effected by a series of resolutions passed by the legislative assembly, in which the other chamber was not invited to concur. In this simple manner was consummated a revolution which bears some analogy to that of 1688 in England. But in 1841 victory was already achieved for the principle of constitutional government, before its formal declaration by the resolutions of the popular chamber. The antecedent struggle between oligarchy and the constitutional principle had been long, fierce, and sanguinary. It was marked by open insurrection in 1837 and 1838. The popular complaints which preceded that outbreak were numerous, but they are all referable to the single circumstance of an irresponsible administration. In the rebellion, which had Louis Joseph Papineau for chief in Lower Canada, and William Lyon Mackenzie in Upper Canada, a considerable number of lives were lost; after the failure of the enterprise, some executions took place, many who had been implicated in the movement fled for protection to the United States, and several were banished to the island of Bermuda. There were some serious engagements between the troops or militia and the insurgents. For some weeks the Upper Canada insurgents had possession of Navy island, situated in the Niagara river, just above the falls. In 1849 a general amnesty was passed. In 1841 Upper and Lower Canada were united for purposes of government. The system of government was professedly modelled after that of Great Britain. In 1849 the parliament houses in Montreal were burned down by a mob, in consequence of a measure proposed by the government to pay certain losses incurred by individuals in the insurrection; and for a period the sessions of the legislature were held every alternate four years in Toronto and Quebec. In 1857 Ottawa was selected as the permanent seat of government. Costly public buildings were erected there; and it continues to be the seat of the general government under the new confederation, the history of which has already been given.
CANADIAN INDIANS. The term Canadaquois was applied by the earliest French writers to a tribe on the N. shore of the St. Lawrence, below Quebec, and apparently the tribe now known as Nasquapees. When the country obtained the name of Canada the term was generalized, and Brebeuf's “Huron or Wyandot Catechism” (Rouen, 1630) is called Canadian.
CANADIAN RIVER rises near Fisher's peak, among the Sierra Blanco mountains, in New Mexico, about 125 m. N. E. of Santa Fé, and after flowing S. for about 150 m. turns E., passes through portions of Texas and the Indian territory, and enters the Arkansas river about 250 m. from its mouth. Its total course is about 600 m. Although during the dry months it is a shallow stream, the melted snows and ice of spring swell its waters so much that it frequently overflows its banks. The North Fork is its principal tributary.
CANAJOHARIE, a village and township of Montgomery co., N. Y., on the Mohawk river and the Erie canal, 50 m. N. W. of Albany; pop. of the township in 1870, 4,256; of the village, 1,822. It contains a number of churches, a bank, and an academy. There are stone quarries in the vicinity.
CANAL, an artificial watercourse, usually constructed for the passage of boats, although the term is applicable to aqueducts for other purposes, as the first canals of the ancient Egyptians and Assyrians, which were originally designed to supply water for irrigation, but afterward came to be used for navigation. In constructing a canal, a plentiful supply of water being of the utmost importance, it should be carried as nearly as the demands of trade will allow through those portions of a country which contain natural watercourses whose level is above the highest level of the water in the canal, and the most unbroken route will he the means of avoiding expensive structures for carrying the boats across valleys and mountains. The channel is formed with sloping sides, the inclination depending
