184 JOURNEY TO THE SHORES 
tain every information on the subject from the 
most authentic sources. The following facts may 
be depended upon. The disorder attacks those 
only who drink the water of the river. It is in- 
deed in its worst state confined almost entirely 
to the half-breed women and children, who reside 
constantly at the fort, and make use of river wa- 
ter, drawn in the winter through a hole made in 
the ice. The men, from being often from home 
on journeys through the plain, when their drink is 
melted snow, are less affected; and, if any of 
them exhibit, during the winter, some incipient 
symptoms of the complaint, the annual summer 
voyage to the sea-coast generally effects a cure. 
The natives who confine themselves to snow Wa- 
ter in the winter, and drink of the small rivulets 
which flow through the plains in the summer, 
are exempt from the attacks of this disease. 
“ These facts are curious, inasmuch as they mi- 
litate against the generally-received opinion that 
the disease is caused by drinking snow water; 
an opinion which seems to have originated from 
bronchocele being endemial to sub-alpine districts. 
“ The Saskatchawan, at Edmonton, is clear in 
the winter, and also in the summer, except dur- 
_ ing the May and July floods. The distance from 
the Rocky Mountains (which I suppose to be of 
primitive formation,) is upwards of one hundred 
