large steamers as far as the Sauk Rapids. Thence to Breckenridge, at
the head of the navigation of the Red River of the North, is a distance
of 125 miles. This part of the journey must be made overland; but
already this district is being fast occupied by settlers, and a good
road may easily be constructed. At Breckenridge a settlement has also
been established. Here commences the fertile valley of the Red River,
and from this point, as appears from Captain Pope's survey, the river,
which runs due north, is navigable for steamers all the way to its
mouth, at the southern extremity of Lake Winnepeg. It begins with four
feet of water, and gradually deepens to fifteen feet Lake Winnepeg,
which is long, narrow, and deep, receives near its northern end the
Saskatchewan, flowing from the west, and having its sources in the Rocky
Mountains. The river, and the country on its banks, have recently
attracted attention as well fitted for colonisation. Taking the climate
of the eastern portion of the continent, and of the region round
Hudson's Bay, as a standard, it was long supposed that all the interior
of North America, beyond the 48th or 49th degree of north latitude, was
too cold to produce grain crops; and unfit, therefore, for the
habitation of civilised men. Recent investigations, however, have fully
established the curious and very important fact, that west of the
western end of Lake Superior, at about the 100th degree of west
longitude, a remarkable change begins to take place in the climate; to
such an extent, that as we proceed westward the limit of vegetable
growth, and of the production of grain, is extended far to the north, so
as to include the whole valley of the Saskatchewan, which is represented
as in other respects well fitted for settlement. The Saskatchewan is a
river larger and longer than the Red River of the North; and, according
to Governor Simpson, of the Hudson's Bay Company's Service, in his notes
on its exploration, it is navigable by its northern branch, with only
one rapid to obstruct navigation, for seven hundred miles in a direct
line to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. How serious an obstruction
this may be does not clearly appear. It can hardly be a perpendicular
fall, since, according to Governor Simpson, canoes and flat-boats pass
over it in safety. From the head of navigation it is only about two
hundred miles across the Rocky Mountains, of which the elevation here is
much less than in