124 On the Temperature of the Atmosphere at Fort Simpson. 



but have not been sown at Fort Norman yet, though no doubt they 

 might thrive as well there as at the two former places, and ripen about a 

 fortnight sooner. 1 know of no vegetable but the turnip which has been 

 successfully tried at Fort Good Hope (Lat. 67° 28' N. ; Long. 130° 52' W.), 

 but that root was far better on the island of the old fort below the ram- 

 parts (Lat. 66° 18' N. ; Long. 128° 32' W.) than on the more elevated 

 mainbank opposite, where the soil is also more dry. Fort Norman had 

 a tolerably good crop of potatoes, barley, cabbages, &c." 

 25th Nov. 1840. 



Register of the Temperature of the Atmosphere, kept at Fort 

 Simpson, North America, in the years 1837, 1838, 1839, and 

 1840. By Murdoch M c Pherson, Esq., Chief Trader of 

 the Hudson's Bay Company; abstracted by John Richard- 

 son, M.D., F.R.S., Inspector of Naval Hospitals, Haslar. 



Fort Simpson, a post belonging to the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany, is situated on the Mackenzie, at the confluence of its 

 south branch, named the River of the Mountains, and 870 

 miles from the Arctic Sea, in Lat. 62° 11' N. ; Long. 121° 

 32' W. The fort stands on the west bank of the river, about 

 40 feet above its channel, and, if we allow 3 inches a mile 

 for the fall of the river from thence to its mouth, the posi- 

 tion of the thermometer may be estimated to be about 250 

 feet above the level of the sea. The temperature was re- 

 gistered in the morning and evening at 8 o'clock, and for two 

 years at 2 p. m. Mr M c Pherson informs me, that the times of 

 observation were not always exactly adhered to, though, in 

 general, they were very nearly so. With the exception of 

 the time of Mr M c Pherson's annual absence from the Fort in 

 September, the register is complete for the autumn, winter, 

 and spring months of three years, but the temperatures of the 

 summer months were obtained in the year 1838 alone. In a 

 paper which I published in the Journal of the Geographical 

 Society (ix.) on Sir Edward Parry's Thermometrical Observa- 

 tions in the Arctic Regions, it is shewn that the mean of the 

 temperatures at the hours 8 a. m. and 8 p. m. combined, does 

 not differ more than three-tenths of a degree from the annual 

 mean of the whole twenty-four hours at any of the places of 

 observation, and is always in defect. I have, therefore, as- 

 sumed the means of Mr McPherson's observations at these 



