290 Our North Land. 



ever, the latitude of Sitka is but 57° 3' N., or only about a degree 

 north of Glasgow in Scotland, while Port Simpson is about 54° 33' 

 N. At Sitka the temperature observations, extending over a period 

 of forty-five years, show that the mean temperature of spring is 

 41*2° ; of summer, 54*6° ; of autumn, 44'9° ; of winter, 32 - 5° ; and for 

 the entire year 433° F. The extremes of temperature for forty-five 

 years are 87'8° and -4'0°. However, the mercury has fallen below 

 zero of Fahrenheit in only four years out of the forty-five, and has 

 risen about 80° during but seven years of that period. The coldest 

 month is January, the warmest August ; June is slightly warmer 

 than September. The mean of the minima for seven years of the 

 above period is 3&§°, and of the maxima for seven years, 48*9°, 

 showing a remarkably equable climate. 



Fogs do not occur in the neighbourhood of Port Simpson as on 

 the southern part of the coast. In proof of this I may quote the 

 adventurous La Perouse, the mariner who subdued Fort Prince of 

 Wales, on Hudson's Bay, in 1782. He speaks of fogs in this locality 

 as of rare occurrence, and records obtained subsequent to his fully 

 justify his observations. Professor Dawson, who has made extended 

 observations around Port Simpson, says that the cause of the excep- 

 tional mildness of the climate of that district is to be found not 

 alone in the fact of the proximity of the sea, but in the abnormal 

 warmth of the water due to the Kuro-Siwo or Japanese Current. 

 The average temperature of the surface of the sea, during the sum- 

 mer months, in the vicinity of the Queen Charlotte Islands, as 

 deduced from a number of observations in 1878, is 53'8°. Between 

 Victoria and Milbanke Sound, by the inner channels, from May 

 28th to June 9th, the average temperature of the sea surface was 

 54 - l° In the inner channels between Port Simpson and Milbanke 

 Sound, between August 29th and September 12th, 54'5°; and from 

 the last-mentioned date to October 18th, about the north end of 

 Vancouver Island, and thence to Victoria by the inner channels, 

 50"7°. Observations by the United States Coast Survey, in 1867, 

 gave a mean temperature for the surface of the sea between Victoria 

 and Port Simpson and outside of the Prince of Wales Archipelago, 

 from Port Simpson to Sitka, in the latter part of July and early in 



