182 



FORMATIONS 0 F 



bullet-moulds and placed them out of doors. Their contents froze in fifteen or 

 twenty minutes, and became solid bullets, that could be, and I believe were, shot 

 out of a fowling-piece. On the same night, Mr. Smithhurst, in charge of the settle- 

 ment of Cree Indians, twenty-six miles below the Lower Fort, placed some mercury 

 in the open air in a spoon. In twenty minutes it was frozen, and did not liquefy 

 for several minutes after it was brought into a room with a fire in it. Captain 

 Moody informed me, that several times when their thermometer indicated — 4 0 °, — 4 1 °, 

 or — 42°, the mercury was not frozen solid, but only turned of a lighter colour, or 

 frosted appearance. 1 was told that on going out of doors in weather of this kind, 

 it had an effect on the breathing somewhat similar to that produced by wading into 

 cold water ; but since it is usually very calm when the thermometer is so low, the 

 cold is not felt so much as when the mercury is higher, with a breeze. 



The mean temperature for the month of January, 1847, — observations taken at 9 a. 

 m., 3 p. m.j and 9 p. m., — was — 12 i°. During twenty-two consecutive days of this time, 

 from the 5th to the 26th inclusive, the mercury never once rose to zero ; the average 

 of the sixty-six observations, during this period, gave twenty and a half degrees 

 below zero as the average temperature. The highest point reached by the mercury, 

 during the month, was 30° ; the lowest, — 48° ; giving a range of seventy-eight degrees. 



From the 17th of June to the 17th of July, 1848, inclusive, the mean temperature 

 was 69°. The warmest day was July 17th, when the mercury stood at 96°; the 

 coolest was July 2d, which was 48° — giving a range, for the month, of forty -eight 

 degrees. The range between the coldest day in January. — 48°, and the hottest 

 day in July, 90°, was one hundred and forty-four degrees. 



The summers are usually short ; even in the latter weeks of March, and early in 

 November, the thermometer often falls to several degrees below zero. The winter 

 of 1847-8 was regarded as unusually mild, but even then it sunk to forty below 

 zero. 



The houses in this country are usually built of squared logs, the interstices being 

 well filled with clay, and the whole whitewashed, and sometimes roughcast. The 

 roofs are almost universally thatched with straw. Some of these houses present a 

 very neat appearance. 



The soil is of an argillaceous character, well adapted to the growth of wheat, 

 barley, oats, beans, peas, and potatoes ; but the summers are often so dry that the 

 crops suffer much on that account. The grain is ground by windmills, which form 

 picturesque and conspicuous objects in the landscape of the plains surrounding the 

 settlement. 



Beyond the settlements of Red River, no opportunity is afforded on that stream 

 for making further observations on the rock formations of the country. A mile or 

 two below the Cree Village, the river enters a tract of low land, and then meanders 

 for more than twenty miles through a morass, before it finally disembogues into 

 Lake Winnipeg. On the south shore of that lake, however, I again had an oppor- 

 tunity of inspecting fossiliferous limestones in situ. At the two localities where I 

 succeeded in obtaining a view of them, they were very much disturbed, dipping 

 either at a high angle, or, standing vertically. On Poplar Point, they are quite 

 thin-bedded, and contain besides small fflitrochites, large varieties of Endocerm. In a 



