Report on the Exploration of the Country Between Lake Superior and the Red River Settlement: And Between the Latter Place and the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan |
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12 noon 9 pm abundant advantage alluvial Appearance of rain Assiniboine aurora banks bordering brisk wind calm Canadian canoes Clear Cloudy coal cretaceous Dauphin distance Dog Lake Duck Mountain extends feet Fort Ellice Fort Frances Fort Garry Fort Pelly fresh breeze Garry gentle wind Grand Portage Hazy Heavy clouds high wind Hudson's Bay Company Indians Island Kaministaquia Lac des Mille Lac Plat Lake Superior Lake Winnipeg land road light breeze light wind limestone Lower Canada Manitouba miles Mille Lacs north-west observed Overcast party passed Pelly plains pleasant wind Pointe de Meuron prairie lands present Rainy Lake Rainy River Red River Settlement region Remarks rock route Savanne River settlers shore snowing a little soil specimens spring streams supply surveys Swan River Temp territory Thunder tion valley western westward Winnipegoos Lake wooded countries
Popular passages
Page 23 - ... indicate desert characteristics. Buffalo are far more abundant on the northern plains, and they remain through the winter at their extreme border, taking shelter in the belts of woodland on the upper Athabasca and Peace Rivers. Grassy savannas like these necessarily imply an adequate supply of rain; and there can be no doubt that the correspondence with the European plains in like geographical position — those of Eastern Germany and Russia — is quite complete in this respect. If a difference...
Page 23 - The quantity of rain is not less important than the measure of heat to all purposes of occupation; and for the plains east of the Rocky Mountains there may reasonably be some doubt as to the sufficiency ; and doubts on this point whether the desert belt of lower latitudes is prolonged to the northern limit of the plains. If the lower deserts are due to the altitude and mass of the mountains simply, it would be natural to infer their existence along the whole line, where the Rocky Mountains run parallel...
Page 23 - ... influence of the Gulf Stream. Climate is indisputably the decisive condition, and when we find the isothermal of 60° for the summer rising on the interior American plains to the 61st parallel, or fully as high as its average position for Europe, it is impossible to doubt the existence of favorable climates over vast areas now unoccupied.
Page 23 - The elevated tracts are of less extent, and the proportion of cultivable surface is far greater. " It will be seen that the thermal lines for each season are thrown further northward on passing Lake Superior to the westward, in the charts of this work, than in those of the military report prepared by the author. At the time those were drawn the number of the observations beyond the limits of the United States were so small that the full expression was not given to the statistics then used, in the...
Page 5 - Numbers of horses were quietly feeding on the rich pasture of this valley when we passed, and what with the clumps of trees on the rising grounds, and the stream winding among green meadows, it seemed as if it wanted but the presence of human habitations to give it the appearance of a highly cultivated country.
Page 23 - Not only in the earliest exploration of these plains, but now they are the great resort for buffalo herds, which with the domestic herds, and the horses of the Indians and the colonists remain on them and at their woodland borders throughout the year. " The simple fact of the presence of these vast herds of wild cattle on plains at so high a latitude, is ample proof of the climatological and productive capacity of the country. Of these plains and their woodland borders the valwbh surface measures...
Page 28 - From Thunder Bay to Dog Lake . . . .28 Through Dog Lake and River to the Prairie Portage 35 Land road past Prairie and Savanne Portages to...
Page 4 - ... feet. Beyond these an apparently unbroken level extends, on one side, for a distance of fifteen or twenty miles to the Porcupine Hills, and for an equal distance on the other, to the high table-land called the Duck Mountain. From this south-westward to Thunder Mountain, the country...
Page 23 - ... or fully as high as its average position for Europe, it is impossible to doubt the existence of favorable climates over vast areas now unoccupied. " This favorable comparison may be traced for the winter also, and in the average for the year. The exceptional cold for the mountain plateaux, and of the coast below the 43rd parallel, masks the advantage more or less to those who •approach these areas from the western part of the Central States, and from the coast of California; but though the...
Page 23 - Mountains, not less remarkable than the first for the absence of attention heretofore given to its intrinsic value as a productive and cultivable region, within easy reach of emigration. This is a wedge-shaped tract, ten degrees of longitude in width at its base along the 47th parallel, inclined northwestward to conform to the trend of the...