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1863. 



TH!E ILLINrOIS FAHMEE. 



87 



From the Chicago Tribune. 



Robert Kennicott and the Hyperbo- 

 reans. 



The pressure of political news upon our columns 

 has deferred the attention deserved by the recently 

 completed tour of our young townsman, Robert 

 Kennicott, for four years a dweller among the peo- 

 ple far towards the frozen sea. He has penetrated 

 nearer the North Pole by land than any of his 

 countrymen, and possibly any tourist. It is well 

 known to many of our readers that his natural 

 tastes, cultivated by a dilligent use of liberal op- 

 portunities, had given him an honorable promin- 

 ence among lovers of natural sciences in the North- 

 west. So well known was he to many of our soci- 

 eties and associations, for this reputation was well 

 earned, that when he came to devise a bold scheme 

 of adventure and exploration in the unknwn wilds 

 of British America, he found his plans handsomely 

 seconded by the Smithsonian Institute, the Chica- 

 go Audubon Club, the University of Michigan, and 

 other bodies of savans, by this means was favora- 

 bly brought to the notice of the managers of the 

 Hudson Bay Company. The rest is easily told. 

 Favored by them and placed in their channels of 

 trade and intercourse, he has traversed, for the 

 period above named, the wilderness of British 

 America, and came back laden with the rich re- 

 sults a mind and habits like his could but accumu- 

 late in such associations. 



If his friends will follow on the map the route 

 laid down as followed by the young naturalist, it 

 will make clear the range of localities he has vis- 

 ited. 



He left the States in the Spring of 1859, the old 

 Public Functionary of Washington being in the 

 toils of the traitors. His point of departure was 

 the shore of Lake Superior whence he struck out 

 on the canoe and portage route of the Hudson Bay 

 Company by Lake of the Woods and Rainy Lake, 

 then down Winnepeg River and the Lake of the 

 same name to Norway House, the principal depot 

 of the Company. Thence around by the route con- 

 necting with the great M'Kenzie River district. 

 This crosses Lake Winnepeg, follows the course of 

 the Saskatchewan River to Cumberland House, 

 and thence by the series of lakes and rivers, that 

 characterize that region, to Churchill River, down 

 which to Portage La Loche,5thence down the Clear 

 Water River to Athabasca and Lake Athabasca, 

 and by the Slave Lake to the noble river of the 

 North— the broad McKenzie— down which to Fort 

 Simpson, the headquarters of the Hudson Bay 

 Company. 



_ By this route, it will be seen, the tourist and 

 the voyageurs his companions, traversed the system 

 of the great North American Lakes, and the chain 

 between these and the noble vallev, the water-shed 

 of the McKenzie. Through this" whole route he 

 was, as stated, the guest of the Company, slept 

 traveled and fared with them, and enjoyed such 

 lacihties as would make any savan in the world en- 

 vious, provided he had good legs and a good stom- 

 ach for such a tour. The employees of the Com- 

 pany are chiefly Canadians and hardy Orkney men 

 Iheir transportation is by strong, light barges^ 



strong for the rapid rivers, light for conveyance . 

 across the numerous portages. ' 



From Fort Simpson, on the McKenzie River, Mr. ' 

 Kennicott struck across the Rocky Mountain chain 

 into Russian America to the Youcon River, whose 

 very name is borne by few maps. This extensive ; 

 range comprises a tour taken by Mr. Kennicott 

 4,000 miles in extent to the northernmost and fro- 

 zen verge of the continent. 



What he saw there he must hereafter tell iiim- 

 self, and the narrative will possess a freshness de- 

 nied to most books of travel. It has afield entire-: i 

 ly new and unvisited. A wilderness it always, : 

 will be, for it is too briefly on the world's sunny. ; 

 side to encourage much in the direction of the : 

 world's best society. Kennicott tells us that he 

 suffered most from heat and mosquitoes. The cold, . 

 one can provide against, but what time the sun 

 suddenly gets a chance at the tardy winter, spring 

 is elided, and summer leaps at once into sway. 

 Snow disappears, ice runs away, and the sun hotlj' 

 plunges into his short work. No wonder that voy- : 

 agers, suddenly transplanted from midwinter to 

 summer's hottest period, melt and suffer by the 

 change. 



The only inhabitants of this immense region are - 

 miserable tribes of Indians. The principal wealth 

 of the country are the animals, whose furs consti- 

 tute the staple of the great English Company, 

 which has so long borne sway and encouraged the 

 savage hunters and trappers. The public have a 

 right to expect it .fepm Mr. Kennicott, that he tell 

 them what he saw.^ 



— ^We welcome our yoimg friend back to the 

 land of a warmer sun and less exacting climate. 

 We shall read his descriptions of his three years at 

 the North with interest. Ed. 



The Aphis. 



1. It is a general law of Nature^hat insects 

 injurious to vegetation have thein^Rpsites and 

 other natural enemies, which are s^roer or later 

 developed in sufficient numbers to exterminate the 

 race they feed upon. 



2. The aphis avanae — the insect which, during 

 this season and the last, has destroyed large crops 

 of oats, spring wheat, barley and rye — is undenia- 

 bly of the louse species, having almost incredible 

 powers of fecundity, developing from a single fe- 

 male, and without the intervention of the other 

 sex, over two millions in twenty days.. 



3. Its enemy is of the lady bug species, perfectly 

 harmless itself to vegetation, but an active poison, 

 probably, to the domestic animals, should they be^ 

 turned upon the stubble too soon after harvests 

 when the lady bug or coccioneUa has finished i% 

 attack upon the aphis. 



4. The aphis is unlike the midge or Kfissian : 

 in the above particulars, except in the genef 

 characteristic of their being severally provided 

 with the parasitic destroyers, and in having their 

 ravages limited by conditions of the atmosphere 

 and of heat and moisture, which are not clearly.^ 

 defined in some cases by early maturity, Snd 1^' 

 constitutional peculiarities in certain varieties of 

 seed which possess a greater toughness o^he peri- 

 carp, or outer covering of the seed. 



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