We have given some notes of the climate of Sitka. Perhaps a few items from the Signal Service reports in relation to a station at Fort St. Michael's, in Yukon, and Unalashka Island, in the Aleutian Archipelago, may be worth noting:

The Attractions of Alaska to the summer tourist are very great. At Sitka and its vicinity the midsummer night is almost as attractive as at Tromsoe or the North Cape. At Kotzebue sound it is quite as beautiful. Later in the season the brilliant aurora borealis, or Northern lights, are of unsurpassed beauty and magnificence..!

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Mr. Blaine thus describes the voyage from Nanaimo, the last port of British Columbia, to Sitka:

“The picturesque parts of the voyage are found between Nanaimo and Sitka. The steamer sweeps through a narrow strait guarded on either hand by snow-capped mountains, and so narrow that despite all your knowledge of perspective it seems as if the shores meet as you look up the channel from the bow of

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the ship. On either side mountains, green at the base and white at the summit, overhang the water. A patch of marble cropping through the trees forms an occasional and welcome spot of color in the monotonous green, and the ripple of a cascade agreeably breaks the stillness which everywhere reigns supreme. For days not a living thing is seen; no animal upon the land, no Indian on the water, no bird in the air. The waves, washed by the wheel against the shore, tremble into silence; the hills which echoed the whistle sullenly grow calm once more, and you seem shut in by the forces of nature, and in the power of the genii of sea and strand. There is apathy everywhere, activity nowhere. High up in the sky the sun rolls lazily along, completing the task in twenty hours which elsewhere he accomplishes in fourteen. The nights glitter with weird light. The sunset is reflected by the sunrise. The west yet glimmers with the streaks of day, while in the east jocund morn stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-top. At 10 at night the finest print is read with ease, and at 3 in the morning the sun streaming into the state room wakens you from sleep."

We can hardly commend Alaska as a favorable point for emigrants, unless it be those hardy Norsemen whose constant encounters with the Arctic climate have rendered them proof against its hardships; but development, though slow in coming, will yet surely reach this far-off land of ice. There will probably be no great change in the climate. Neither wheat nor dairy products will be exported in any large quantity, but the seal and sea-otter furs, and the furs and pelts of land animals, will increase in value and perhaps in numbers; the magnificent forests will supplement the fast diminishing timber product of the Pacific coast, and the fisheries will furnish abundant and healthful food to millions who to-day hardly know that Alaska exists. Then there will be a place there for the hardy and adventurous emigrant, and his toil will be rewarded.

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PART IV.

THE LANDS OUTSIDE OF "OUR WESTERN EMPIRE."

CHAPTER I.

THE NORTHwestern PROVINCES OF THE DOMINION OF CANADA. Y. BRITISH COLUMBIA-BOUNDARIES—AREA—ISLANDS-SOIL OF ISLANDS AND COAST-SOIL AND SURFACE OF THE INTERIOR-MOUNTAINS-Rivers-GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY-COAL-GOLD, SILVER, ETC.-FISHERIES-TIMBERFUR-TRADE-POPULATION-INDIANS-CHIEF TOWNS-II. THE NORTHWEST TERRITORIES-EXTENT-RECENT DIVISION-LAKES-RIVERS-MOUNTAINSSOIL CLIMATE WARMER THAN MANITOBA-WILD ANIMALS AND GAME PLENTY -RIVERS AND LAKES STOCKED WITH FISH-POPULATION-INDIANS-RELIGION-III. KEEWATIN-THE NEW TERRITORY-NOT MUCH KNOWN OF IT-IV. MANITOBA ITS TERRITORY TOO SMALL-NO GOOD REASON FOR THIS-ITS BOUNDARIES-ITS RIVERS-THE PROVINCE NEARLY A DEAD LEVEL-CLIMATE -RAINFALL-Meteorology OF FORT GARRY-AGRICULTURE-CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS-Report of an "ENGLISH FARMER "-REPLY OF "A CANADIAN" -Climate very Severe in Winter—Mr. Vernon Smith's DescriptION OF THE RIVERS AND LAKES AND their Future Usefulness-EARL DUFFERIN'S DESCRIPTION-MR. VERNON SMITH ON THE CROPS-LATER STATISTICS NOT AVAILABLE-TRANSPORTATION-THE CANADIAN PACIFIC-ITS PRESENT CONDITION AND PRospects-ReligION-EDUCATION, ETC.-PRINCIPAL TOWNSHISTORICAL NOTES--THE RED RIVER Settlement-PEMBINA-ASSINIBOIA— RIEL'S REVOLUTION-THE RAPID GROWTH OF THE PROVINCE SINCE IT BECAME A PART OF THE DOMINION.

I. BRITISH COLUMBIA. This is the most western province of the Dominion of Canada, lying between the 48th and the 60th parallels of north latitude, and the 114th and the 139th meridians of longitude west from Greenwich. It is bounded on the north by the Arctic portion of the Northwest Territory; on the east by the same; on the south by the United States (the Territories of (1282)