No. 7.] AMERICAN GEOGRAPHY. 427 



and a compasi^, which latter is a somewhat fallacious guide in a 

 region where the declination varies betwen 35*^ and 58^. His 

 method has been to work in the details brought within his per- 

 sonal knowledge, or well attested by native information, on the 

 basis of Franklin's charts. 



'^ M. Petitot expresses his persuasion that the district of Mac. 

 kenzie river can never be colonized — a conclusion no one who 

 has visited it will be disposed to dispute ; but he omits to point 

 out that the mouth of that river is about 700 miles nearer the 

 port of Victoria, in British Columbia, than the mouth of the 

 Lena is to Yokohama, and far more accessible. It needs no 

 Nordenskiold to show the way. Its upper waters, the Liard, 

 Peace, Elk, and Athabasca rivers, drain an enormous extent of 

 fertile country, not without coal or lignite, and with petroleum 

 in abundance. As the geological survey has not yet been ex- 

 tended- so far, we are not fully acquainted with its mineral 

 resources ; but I can add my testimony to that of more recent 

 travellers, as to the remarkable apparent fertility, and the excep- 

 tional climate of the Peace River valley. It is no extravagant 

 dream that sees in a distant future the beneficent influence of 

 commerce, reaching by this great natural channel, races of man- 

 kind, in a high degree susceptible to them ; and alleviating 

 what appears to us to be the misery of their lot. 



" There are few subjects of greater physical interest, or which 

 have received less investigation, than the extent to which the 

 soil of our planet is now permanently frozen round the North 

 Pole. Erman, on theoretical grounds, affirms that the ground at 

 Yakutsk is frozen to a depth of 630 feet. x\t 50 feet below the 

 surface it had a temperature of 28^.5 F. ( — 6^ R.), and was 

 barely up to the freezing point at 382 feet. It is very different 

 on the American continent. The rare opportunity was afforded 

 me, by a landslip on a large scale, in May 1844, of observing its 

 entire thickness, near Fort Norman, on Mackenzie river, about 

 200 miles further north than Yakutsk, and it was only 45 feet. 

 At York Factory and Hudson's Bay it is said to be about 23 

 feet. The recent extension of settlement in Manitoba has led to 

 wells being sunk in many directions, establishing the fact that 

 the permanently frozen stratum does not extend so far as that 

 region, notwithstanding an opinion to the contrary of the late 

 Sir George Simpson. Probably it does not cross Churchill river, 

 for I was assured that there is none at Lake a la Crosse. It 



