CLIMATE AT FORT WILLIAM. 



31 



from the third to the fifteenth of November, and it becomes 

 free from ice between the twentieth and twenty-third 

 April. The year 1857 proved an exception in many 

 respects ; the ice did not pass out of the river until 

 the thirteenth of May, and on the first of August, the day 

 of my visit, the waters of the river were higher than they 

 had ever been known before at that season of the year. 



Indian corn will not succeed in this settlement, early 

 and late frosts cutting it off. Frost occurs here under the 

 influence of the cold expanse of Lake Superior, until the 

 end of June, and begins again towards the end of August. 

 A few miles further up the river, west of McKay's 

 Mountain, the late and early frosts are of rare occurrence, 

 and it was stated that Indian corn would ripen on the 

 flanks of McKay's Mountain. 



All kinds of small grain succeed well at the Mission, 

 and the reason why they have not been more largely 

 cultivated is owing to the want of a mill for the purpose 

 of converting them into flour or meal. Near the lake, at 

 Fort William for instance, oats do not always ripen ; 

 the cold air from the lake, whose surface, thirty and 

 fifty miles from land, showed a temperature of 39° 5', 

 at the close of the hottest month of the year, is sufficient to 

 prevent many kinds of vegetables from acquiring ma- 

 turity, which succeed admirably four or five miles up the 

 river. 



Fragments of limestone have been procured in the 

 neighbourhood, but the locality could not be pointed out 

 by any of its inhabitants. The ruins of a lime kiln, used 

 by the North West Company, have been discovered, and 

 it is very probable that the limestone was obtained from 

 crystalline layers, the existence of which has been estab- 

 lished over wide areas in Thunder Bay, by Sir William 

 Logan, and are noticed by him as being of a " reddish 



