240 CLIMATOLOGY. 



House to their occurrence at Cumberland House is between a 

 fortnight and three weeks. The difference of latitude, which 

 is only one degree, is nearly counterbalanced by 200 feet of 

 greater altitude ; but the dry sandy soil of the plains, which 

 are early denuded of snow, gives the spring there a great 

 superiority over that of the lower country, where the ground 

 is almost submerged, and the greater part of it icebound for 

 a month after the river is open. 



I obtained no other register of temperatures at Edmonton 

 House, or from the country near the base of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains in that parallel, than the daily maxima and minima for 

 two winter months observed by Mr. Drummond in 1827. 

 These are included in the subjoined table ; and it will be 

 observed that the winter, as far as we can judge from a few 

 isolated observations, is even milder at Edmonton than at Cum- 

 berland House, though it is on the same parallel and at a much 

 greater altitude. Edmonton House is in latitude 54° N, and 

 longitude 113° W., and its elevation above the sea is estimated 

 by Captain Lefroy, from his observations on the boiling point 

 of water, at 1,800 feet. 



Neither have I been able to procure registers of temperatures 

 kept at any post in the southern parts of the Saskatchewan 

 basin. The Red River Colony extends to the boundary line of 

 the United States, or the 49th parallel ; and I have been informed 

 that the Fagusferrnginea, or American beech, grows within the 

 limits of the settlement, though it does not exist on Lake Supe- 

 rior, but terminates in that direction at Michilimackinac, on the 

 46th parallel. In the interesting account of the Alps of New 

 Hampshire by Professor Agassiz, the trees which grow in the 

 zone comprised between the elevations of 830 and 1,500 feet 

 above the sea are the same kinds which grow on the Red River 

 and forks of the Saskatchewan at nearly as great altitudes, and 

 from five to ten degrees further north ; with the addition of the 

 oaks, which find their northern limit on Lake Winipeg, though 

 they do not enter the corresponding New Hampshire zone. 

 The same trees, however, if I understand the passage in the 



