Climate of the Canadian West. Gp 
the west, in accordance with cosmic laws. Down from the 
-north come the cold and dry winds, unchecked by any 
obstacle, and the hot breath of Holus is overcome by a frosty 
blast from Boréas’ cold cheeks. How remarkably ditferent 
would be the climate of Manitoba were there a high range 
of mountains between it and Hudson’s Bay; or were the 
Saskatchewan occupied by an extensive inland sea! 
It appears, then, that (apart from the influence of the 
Chinook, due to the presence of the Rocky Mountains) the 
reason the Canadian Northwest enjoys so warm and com- 
paratively rainy a climate is, in a word, because it lies 
northward of arid plains of much higher elevation. 
In this same condition seems to be found the valuable im- 
munity which western Canada, and the northern border 
of United States enjoy from those fearful blizzards that 
devastate southern Dakota, and make cattle and cattle- 
men shiver even on the coast of Texas. These winds all 
come from the far Northwest, and have blown, perhaps, a 
thousand miles across Canada before they become blizzards. 
But their course over the Saskatchewan, Qu’Appelle and 
Assiniboine plains, and down the Winnipeg valley, is con- 
tinually impeded. First, the country is everywhere uneven 
and often broken by respectable hills ; second, large areas 
of it are covered with a scrub of bushes, or dotted with cop- 
ses of trees, all of which check and divert the gale; third, 
these winds are moving steadily up grade, and their speed 
is as continuously checked by friction against the earth, as 
is that of a railway train climbing a gradient. A wind will 
blow down hill faster than up, just as a stone will roll down 
hill easier than it can be pushed up. Finally, the air in the 
north is so nearly the temperature of the gale that it is not 
sucked forward with greatly accelerated speed, until it nears 
the warmer latitudes where more heated and rarified air is 
rising from the more southerly plains, and this cold northern 
air is drawn in to fill the vacuum. But by the time the 
“norther” has reached Nebraska it finds itself blowing 
across plateau-lands, at the top of the hill, where there is 
not a bush nor tree nor range of hills to check it, and the 
