Dr. Bell's Hudson's Bay Explorations. 373 



As to the soil of the Eastmain coast, Dr. Bell says : — " Along the 

 east side of James's Bay, from the vicinity of Rupert's House to Cape 

 Jones, there is a strip of country, averaging perhaps twenty or thirty 

 miles in width from the sea-shore, which, from all that I could learn 

 from others or observe myself, appears as if it might, some day, have 

 a certain agricultural value. Viewed from the bay, it has a gently 

 undulating aspect, and slopes gradually down to the shore. It is 

 wooded with spruce, tamarac, poplars, and small white birch. At 

 Fort George I saw a quantity of good spruce logs which had been 

 brought down the Big River for building purposes. Many of them 

 measured two feet in diameter at the butt, and their average ages, 

 j udging by the rings of growth, was nearly one hundred years. The 

 soil of the strip of country just described is generally sandy, often 

 underlaid by stratified greyish clays, which occasionally come to 

 the surface, with boulder-drift, or solid rock beneath all ; but either 

 of these also sometimes forms the surface. The gardens of Rupert's 

 House, Eastmain, and Fort George show that potatoes and all the 

 ordinary vegetables thrive well. The Hudson's Bay Company's 

 establishment at Eastmain is maintained for the purpose of raising 

 stock. The cattle and sheep which we saw there were in excellent 

 condition." 



As to the climate, in going northward from the height of land 

 beyond Lake Superior, it does not appear to get worse, but on the 

 contrary to improve. Among other causes, this is owing to the 

 constantly decreasing elevation of the country, the greater length of 

 the summer day in the north, and the accumulation of warm river 

 water in the head of James's Bay. 



The country south of James's Bay is, most of it, quite heavily 

 timbered. The original timber along the lower stretch of Moose 

 River has been mostly burnt within the last fifty or sixty years ; 

 but wherever the old spruces have escaped, they are of a larger 

 growth than those seen on any other part of the route from Michi- 

 picoten. In regard to the distribution of the timber, it is a curious 

 fact that small white elms appear below the Long Portage of the 

 Missinaibi branch of the Moose, after having been last seen on the 

 lower parts of the Michipicoten River near Lake Superior. The 



