262 CONTRIBUTIONS TO METEOROLOGY. 



amidst the dying and the dead, smear themselves with hlood, thrust 

 their arms up to the shoulders into the reeking bodies of their victims, 

 the savage barbarity of the wild prairie Indian shows itself in its true 

 colours. Not even a scalp dance over many fallen foes affords such a 

 terrible picture of degraded humanity as do a large band of prairie 

 Indians, some hundreds in numbers, during and after the slaughter of 

 buffalo in the pound. 



The condition of the Indians now is very different to what it used 

 to be half a century since. Not only have imported diseases greatly 

 diminished their numbers, but game of different kinds has become 

 so scarce that during some seasons starvation is no fiction. 



In sickness prairie Indians are much depressed, and often seek conso- 

 lation in the monotonous drum of the medicine man and his heathenish 

 incantations, an infliction which the grossest and most debased super- 

 stition alone would tolerate ; submitted to with hope and confidence, 

 however, by men who are anxious and timid during the roll of thunder, 

 invoking the Great Bird by whose flapping wings they suppose it 

 produced, or crouching from the blink of his all penetrating eye, 

 which they allege is the lightning flash. 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO METEOROLOGY, FROM OBSERVA- 

 TIONS TAKEN AT ST. MARTIN, ISLE JESUS, CANADA 

 EAST. 



BY CHARLES SMALLWOOD, M.D., LL.D. 



PEOEESSOE OF METEOEOLOGT IN THE UNIVEESITT OE M'GILL COllEGE, MONTEEAI,. 



Read before the Canadian Institute, Qth April, 1859. 



The following observations extend over the year 1858 : The Geo- 

 graphical co-ordinates of the Observatory are Latitude 45'^32', North, 

 and Longitude 73*^36', "West, from Greenwich. The cistern of the 

 Barometer is 118 feet above the level of the Sea, the Mean Results 

 are obtained from tri-daily observations taken at 6 a.m., 2 p.m., and 

 10 p.m., and the whole of the observations have been subjected to the 

 usual corrections, depending on the constructions of the instruments 

 and for temperature. 



