QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS. 43 B 



ways. The heaviest rainfall is, however, local, taking place on the Heavy local 



western mountainous axis, where the westerly winds surcharged with ra 



moisture first meet an impediment in their flow, and are thrown up 



into the cooler regions of the atmosphere. It may often be noted that 



while heavy rain is falling on the mountains the sky is comparatively 



clear over the strait to the eastward. From this circumstance the 



triangular area of low land forming the north-eastern part of Graham 



Island is not subject to an extremely heavy rainfall, and would appear 



to be well suited to agriculture but for the dense forest covering, which 



-at the present time it will not pay to remove. The Hudson Bay Com- Grazing land?. 



pany have a post at Masset, where, for some years, cattle have been 



kept, or rather have kept themselves, grazing on the open sand-hills in 



the vicinity of the coast, and requiring no attention summer or winter. 



Between Masset and Skidegate a considerable number of animals might 



live in this way, and it has been proposed to winter mules and horses 



from the mines of Cassiar in this country. In winter the rainfall in 



the islands is generally very heavy, with persistently overcast sky, and 



gales more frequent and violent than those experienced on the coast 



to the southward. ISTo observations on the total annual precipitation 



exist. Snow occasionally falls in winter to a considerably depth, but Snow. 



does not lie long, except in the mountains. In the winter of 1877-^78 



no snow fell on the low lands. 



The general remarks on winds given for the coast to the southward storms and fogs 

 in the Vancouver Island Pilot (page 4) apply almost equally well to 

 those of the Queen Charlotte Islands, so far as the observations made 

 in their vicinity show. It would appear from the direction of the wind 

 and behaviour of the barometer that most of the storm centres pass 

 eastward to the north of the islands, and it is pi^obable that the sea to 

 the northward is more tempestuous than in their vicinity. Fogs do 

 not seem to occur with such great frequency as in the southern part of 

 the Strait of Georgia. 



The temperature of the surface of the sea was frequently observed Average temp 



Griiturs 01 tuG 



where local circumstances did not appear to interfere with it. The sea. 

 temperature at the bottom could not be determined owing to the non- 

 arrival of the thermometer ordered for that purpose. Between Victoria 

 and Milbank Sound, by the inner channels, the temperatures taken 

 every evening from May 28th to June 9th give an average of 54°. 1 

 Fahrenheit. From June 10th to August 28th, forty-two observations 

 on different days, all in the vicinity of the Queen Charlotte Islands, 

 give a mean temperature of 53°. 8. This may be taken as representing 

 pretty accurately the average temperature of the surface water during 

 the three summer months — June, July and August. Seven observations 

 in the channels between Port Simpson and Milbank Sound, between 



