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Some Notes on the Natural History of Manitoba. 



On the long railroad journey in mid-March of 1911, from Halifax 

 to Winnipeg, which occupied three days and nights, the snow lay 

 everywhere, deep and brilliant, the cold being intense. Through an 

 occasional clear patch on the frost-covered double windows of the 

 train, it was possible to survey the passing landscape. This was 

 mostly devoid of trees, unattractive and monotonous, except during 

 one beautiful moonlit night, while skirting the northern shores of 

 Lake Superior. Here the scenery was magnificent; the snow-laden 

 fir trees and the enchanting beauty of the thousand islets near the 

 margins of the lake were too wonderful to be passed in sleep. 



The venturesome traveller who leaves the warm train at a halt- 

 ing place in order to exercise his limbs, finds the fresh air and sun- 

 shine for the first few minutes extremely exhilarating, but the frost 

 soon cuts like a knife, and produces sharp pain, like that of acute 

 neuralgia, in the ears, nose, and cheekbones. If in his inexperience 

 he ignores the cold, he may in the course of a very short time find 

 himself in need of first-aid for frostbite ! No Canadian defies this 

 almost tangible enemy, and every precaution is taken both within 

 doors and without to guard against it. 



The house in which I spent the winter in Winnipeg was heated 

 in the usual manner, by hot air circulating through every part of 

 the building. Notwithstanding the comfortable temperature thus 

 obtained night and day, and in spite of the double windows, I 

 found it necessary in order to secure some daylight, to scrape off 

 periodically from inside my bed-room window the frozen moisture 

 accumulated from my breath. In this way I removed about once a 

 week as much as half a washing basin full of the scraped ice. On 

 one occasion I had the curiosity to measure the thickness of the 

 congealed moisture at the lowest part of the windows inside a 

 lecture hall. The distance of the steam-heating apparatus from this 

 mass was fourteen inches, and the ice was four inches thick. 



In the City Hospital, as I was informed by Dr. Monro, there 

 were always a dozen or more patients in with frost-bite, some of 

 whom would be minus an ear or a limb or two on their discharge. 

 By the middle of November the great Ked River, and its tributary 

 the Assiniboine, which joins the former in Winnipeg, are frozen up, 

 and these rivers are not open again till about the second week in 

 April. 



From temperature charts which I kept during my stay in Canada, 

 the lowest point recorded by me was 36° below zero, but that night 



