334 GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN 1872. 



of interest in British North America. The 

 survey of the Pacific Railroad, through Western 

 Canada, Manitoba, and British Columbia, has 

 been completed, and, by the aid of British 

 capitalists and grants of bonds by the Domin- 

 ion of Canada, a sufficient sum raised to justify 

 the commencement of the enterprise. The 

 charter admits of their running to the United 

 States boundary, and connecting, if they find it 

 necessary, with other roads hi the United States. 

 Rev. W. W. Kirkby, long a missionary of 

 the English Church at the factories and forts 

 of the Hudson's Bay Company, and a geogra- 

 pher of known reputation, gave in the Church 

 Missionary Intelligencer of January, 1872, a 

 description of the climate, temperature, and 

 productions of the west coast of Hudson's Bay, 

 especially in the vicinity of Fort Churchill, 

 where he had been spending four or five 

 months. He had been, some years before, 

 stationed at Fort Simpson, on the Mackenzie 

 River, and he compares the climate of the two 

 stations, and thus demonstrates that the iso- 

 thermal lines, as the traveller approaches the 

 west coast of North America, tend rapidly 

 northwest, and that the climate of 63 to 65 

 N. lat., on the Mackenzie River, is really milder 

 than that of 57 or 58 on the western shore 

 of Hudson's Bay, and also milder than that of 

 52 to 55 on the eastern coast. Fort Churchill 

 is in N. lat. about 58, five or six miles from 

 the bay, and on a low and marshy strip of 

 land lying between Hayes and North Rivers. 

 Fort Simpson is situated on the Mackenzie, in 

 lat. about 63, on land somewhat higher and 

 drier. From his tables we give the following 

 comparative record of the average temperature 

 of the seasons and of the year at these two 

 stations : 



Mr. Kirkby states that at Fort Churchill, on 

 the 9th of June, the ice was still running in 

 the rivers, and that the climate is so cold and 

 changeable that the 5th of June was the first 

 day of the season which was wholly bright 

 and clear, without excessive cold in some part 

 of the day. Even during the summer months, 

 in the warmest and sunniest days, if the wind 

 begins to blow from the bay, there is an imme- 

 diate change to intense cold. At Fort Simp- 

 son, on the contrary, though in so much higher 

 latitude, the climate is much milder, and the 

 winds which blow from the upper valley of the 

 Mackenzie River are balmy and grateful. 



In the UNITED STATES the year has been 

 marked by extraordinary geographical activity 

 and progress. The completion, just at the 

 close of the year, of Messrs. Asher & Adams's 

 "Topographical, Commercial, and Statistical 

 Atlas and Gazetteer of the United States " is 

 an event worthy of notice. Nearly six years 

 of intense labor by a large corps of experienced 



map-engravers and topographers had been be- 

 stowed upon it ; the Government, Coast, and 

 Signal Service surveys and maps, the State 

 surveys, the maps and plans of all the rail- 

 ways, the collections of the topographer of 

 the Post-Office Department, and numberless 

 maps, plans, and surveys from private sources, 

 were brought into requisition for it. The prin- 

 cipal features of novelty and excellence in this 

 great atlas of sixty maps are : That all the maps 

 of the United States are drawn to one scale 20 

 miles to the inch and thus show, as no large 

 atlas of this country ever has done, the rela- 

 tive size and territory of each State ; that the 

 location of all towns and cities has been ad- 

 justed to the recent discovery of the previous 

 errors in longitude in Ohio and other States, 

 made by the Superintendent of the Coast Sur- 

 vey, in his recent geodetic reconnoissance of 

 the interior States, of which we have already 

 spoken ; that all railway routes, either par- 

 tially or wholly completed, are laid down, and 

 all stations on them, thus obviating the neces- 

 sity of inserting all the old post-routes, now 

 discontinued ; that while all important places, 

 and all stations on the railways, are inserted, 

 the names of unimportant places are left off 

 the maps, but inserted, with their location, 

 distance, and direction from the nearest rail- 

 way station, in the accompanying gazetteer, 

 so that their exact locality can be immediately 

 ascertained; that the coast-lines are laid down 

 in exact conformity to the latest maps and 

 charts of the Coast Survey, and maps of the 

 Dominion of Canada and its provinces, of 

 Alaska, of Europe, of the World on Mercator's 

 projection, an excellent map of the physical 

 geography of the United States, and also one 

 of the United States as a whole, are added to 

 the collection of State maps ; that the gazet- 

 teer is a complete geographical index, giving 

 alphabetically, by States, the name, location, 

 and direction from the nearest railway-sta- 

 tion, of every city, town, village, and post- 

 office, in the United States and Canada ; while 

 separate tables give the population of Canada 

 by counties ; census statistics of population, ag- 

 ricultural productions, manufactures, valua- 

 tions, taxes, and debts, not national, and of edu- 

 cation, of each State and Territory ; full 

 statistics of all the governments and coun- 

 tries of the globe, and the population, in the 

 order of countries, of all the most important 

 towns in the world. Of course, no atlas or 

 gazetteer can ever be absolutely perfect, but 

 this is a much nearer approximation to per- 

 fection than any thing hitherto published in 

 this country. There has been also a decided 

 improvement in the quality and accuracy of 

 the better grade of mounted maps of the 

 United States and in the atlases for the use of 

 schools. Some of the mounted maps, in care- 

 ful drawing, in fulness of detail, and their 

 frequent revision, and in the statistical pam- 

 phlets which accompany them, furnish a very 

 tolerable substitute for the more expensive 



