33 



The summer isothermals, which carry with them the possibility of 

 ripening crops, trend far to the nerth. 



Let us trace, for example, and as a rough and ready index of the 

 northern limit of practicable agriculture of any kind, that isothermal 

 line which represents a'mean temperature of 60° Farenheit in the month 

 of July. Passing through the southern part of Newfoundland and 

 touching the island of Anticosti, this line runs to the north end of 

 Mistassini Lake, and thence crosses Hudson Bay, striking the west 

 shore a short distance north of York Factory. Thence it runs west- 

 ward, skirting the north end of Reindeer Lake, and then bending to the 

 north-west, crosses Great Slave Lake, and touches the southern 

 extremity of Great Bear Lake. From this point it resumes a westward 

 course and crosses the Yukon River a considerable distance to the 

 north of the confluence of the Pelly and Lewes, turning south again 

 almost on the east line of Alaska. We need not, however, further 

 follow its course, as owing to peculiar climatic conditions on the West 

 Coast, it ceases there to be any criterion as to the conditions of agri- 

 culture. 



The character of much of the western interior country is such, that 

 its exploration and survey is comparatively easy, and it will be observed 

 that here the larger unknown regions are to be found only far to the 

 northward, leaving in the more rugged and inhospitable eastern region 

 vast islands of unexplored country in much more southern latitudes. 



It may be said, in fact, that comparatively little of the region 

 capable, so far as climate goes, of producing wheat is now altogether 

 unknown ; but it may be added, that increasing as the world now 

 is in population, its people cannot much longer expect to find wheat- 

 growing lands unoccupied in lai'ge blocks. The time is within measurable 

 distance when lands with a fertile soil though [more or less rigorous 

 climate, in which only barley, oats, hemp, flax and other hardy 

 crops can be matured, will be in demand, and we are far from having 

 acquired even a good general knowledge of these lands in Canada. 



For many of the unexplored regions marked upon this map, how" 

 ever, we can in reason appeal only to their possible or presumable 

 mineral wealth as an incentive to their exploration, and if some of them 

 should prove wholly or in great part barren when such explora- 



