30 



CLIMATE. 



and the snow lies about fifteen, or at the 

 utmost eighteen inches deep. As the climate 

 of a country is not known by merely measuring 

 its distance from the equator, but is affected 

 differently in the same parallel of latitude by 

 its locality, and a variety of circumstances, 

 we find that of Red River, though situated in 

 the same parallel, far different from, and in- 

 tensely more cold than, that of England. The 

 thermometer is frequently at 30° and 40° below 

 zero, when it is only about freezing point in 

 the latter place. This difference is probably 

 occasioned by the prevailing north-westerly 

 wind, that blows with piercing keenness over 

 the rocky mountains, or Andes, which run 

 from north to south through the whole Conti- 

 nent, and over a country which is buried in 

 ice and snow. 



As my instructions were to afford religious 

 instruction and consolation to the servants in 

 the active employment of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, as well as to the Company's retired 

 servants, and other inhabitants of the settle- 

 ment, upon such occasions as the nature of the 

 country and other circumstances would permit ; 

 I left the Forks * in a cariole drawn by three 



* So called from the junction of the Assiniboine River with 

 the Red River. 



