416 Our North Land. 



southward to the Llano Estacado of Texas, and none of the refer- 

 ences made to them by residents or travellers indicate desert charac- 

 teristics. Buffalo are far more abundant on the northern plains, and 

 they remain through the winter at their extreme border, taking 

 shelter in the belts of woodland on the Upper Athabaska and Peace 

 Rivers. Grassy savannas like these necessarily imply an adequate 

 supply of rain ; and there can be no doubt that the correspondence 

 with the European plains in like geographical position — those of 

 Eastern Germany and Russia — is quite complete in this respect. If 

 a difference exists it is in favour of the American plains, which have 

 a greater proportion of surface waters, both as lakes and rivers. 



" Next, the area of the plains east of the Rocky Mountains is no 

 less remarkable than the §rst for the absence of attention heretofore 

 given to its intrinsic value as a productive and cultivable region 

 within easy reach of emigration. This is a wedge-shaped tract, ten 

 degrees of longitude in width at its base, along the 47th parallel 

 inclined north-westward to conform to the trend of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, and terminating not far from the 60th parallel in a narrow 

 line, which still extends along the Mackenzie for three or four degrees 

 of latitude, in a climate barely tolerable. Lord Selkirk began his 

 efforts at colonization in the neighbourhood of Winnipeg as early as 

 1815, and from personal knowledge he then claimed for this tract a 

 capacity to support thirty millions of inhabitants. All the grains of 

 the cool, temperate latitudes are produced abundantly. Indian corn 

 may be grown on both sides of the Saskatchewan, and the grass of 

 the plains is singularly abundant and rich. Not only in the earliest 

 exploration of these plains, but now, they are the great resort for 

 buffalo herds, which, with the domestic herds and horses of the 

 Indians and the colonists, remain on them and at their woodland 

 borders throughout the year. The simple fact of the presence of 

 these vast herds of wild cattle on plains at so high a latitude is 

 ample proof of the climatological and productive capacity of the 

 country. Of these plains and their woodland borders the valuable 

 surface measures fully five hundred thousand square miles. " 



Thus I have given the most unquestionable testimony of the 



