654 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to extinguish a fire, when the thermometer stood a little below 

 50 F., had his fingers immediately frozen, and as it was found 

 impossible to restore the circulation they were amputated. 3. 

 That when it was extremely cold it was almost impossible to 

 make the wood burn. I will come to these later. 



Now for the experience of a Canadian surveyor. It was my 

 privilege to be connected as instrument-man with a survey party 

 which went out to the Canadian Northwest under the command 

 of Mr. G. B. Abrey, D. L. S. (now engineer of Toronto Junction). 

 The party consisted of fourteen men all told, and was out under 

 canvas for twelve months, from June, 1882, to June, 1883. We 

 were running standard parallels, and moved camp every day. 

 This necessitated the employment of fourteen horses, two buck- 

 boards, and twelve carts, the wheeled vehicles being replaced in 

 winter by the same number of toboggans. Winter commenced on 

 the 1st of November, when snow fell to the depth of two feet and 

 remained. We then left the plains south of Battleford and made 

 our way to Fort Pitt, near which our winter work started. Our 

 outfit consisted of four ten-ounce duck tents, in three of which 

 were small sheet-iron box stoves, and in the fourth, the cook's 

 tent, a sheet-iron cook stove. Our winter food was composed of 

 pork, beans, dried apples, and bread, with tea and sugar ; to which 

 may be added eight hundred pounds of fresh beef, and the flesh 

 of one elk or wapiti and one jumping deer. When we could we 

 shot prairie chickens, but this was not very often. 



For clothing I wore woolen underclothing, such as I now wear 

 in the city of Toronto, a flannel shirt, and over these caribou 

 breeches with long woolen stockings drawn over them, a cham- 

 ois-leather vest, and a small single-breasted tweed coat such as 

 is worn in the city before overcoats become necessary in the fall. 

 My feet were clothed with dufiie and moccasins, and my head 

 with a double, knitted, Hudson Bay tuque, which can be pulled 

 right down over the ears. A pair of common woolen mits com- 

 pleted my outfit. At no time during the winter did I wear either 

 overcoat or mufller. Indeed, neither the one nor the other was to 

 be found in the camp. Mr. Abrey's dress was nearly the counter- 

 part of mine, and the men wore woolen clothing altogether. 



At night Mr. Abrey and I used two pairs of Hudson Bay 

 blankets and two buffalo skins each. The blankets we sewed up 

 into bags, and put one buffalo skin beneath and one over us. We 

 slept on folding stretchers, which was, of course, not as warm as 

 sleeping on the ground. Mr. Abrey, being slightly bald, wore a 

 woolen nightcap, but I never covered my head the winter through. 

 The men's sleeping outfits consisted of blankets only. 



Our firewood was dry poplar sticks from one to two inches 

 through. This makes a good hot fire, and the colder the day the 



