Climate and Seasonal Conditions. 5 



that the maxima of ten degrees of heat and twenty-one degrees 

 of cold obtain in the former over the climate of the seaboard. 



Among the first impressions of Canadian scenery, few are 

 more striking than the freezing, snowing over, and breaking up 

 of the ice on the great rivers and lakes. The short-lived but hot 

 summer is succeeded by the sharp biting frosts of autumn, and 

 a long and rigorous winter, occupying more than half the year. 

 There is no spring worthy of the name ; for the rush from winter 

 hoar to refulgent summer is so rapid that the leaf buds and 

 opens out in the course of two days. It is the absence of that 

 gradual transition from one extreme of temperature to another 

 that arrests the attention of the fresh arrival, as compared 

 with the climate of England. 



Towards the end of October, soon after the hard-wood 

 forests have cast off their gorgeous autumnal attire, and those 

 beautifully coloured leaves that hang so gracefully and decorate 

 so grandly many a spreading maple, now lie stiff and faded on 

 the soil ; when the snipe and woodcock have left the alder 

 swamp, and with all the summer birds of passage are on their 

 way to Florida and the south, and the time has arrived when 

 the hare and weasel are turning grey ; then it is we look forward 

 to the severe frosts that are to close up the navigation and 

 cause the steamboats to beat a hasty retreat seaward. First, 

 there forms some shore ice along the banks, then portions float 

 downwards, and, provided a north-wester is blowing, these soon 

 coalesce and run in fields, gliding silently onwards. The pas- 

 senger steamboats which plied daily during the summer months 

 are in readiness for immediate departure, and probably before 

 two days they have gone, for the sheets of ice begin to join, con- 

 solidate, get packed, and forced under and above one another, 

 so that there is no knowing how soon the river may be frozen 

 over completely. Sometimes without any premonitory appear- 

 ances there is an equal freezing all over, and the surface 

 becomes like a mirror in a single night ; but oftener, from the 

 pressure of the floes, the surface becomes very rough and un- 



