fold, and continued for so many successive days,
it becomes an evil of such magnitude, that cold, famine, and every
other concomitant of an inhospitable climate, must yield the
pre-eminence to it. It chases the buffalo to the plains, irritating him
to madness; and the rein-deer to the sea-shore, from which they do not
return till the scourge has ceased.

On the 6th the thermometer was 106 deg. in the sun, and on the 7th 110 deg.. The
musquitoes sought the shade in the heat of the day. It was some
satisfaction to us to see the havoc made among them by a large and
beautiful species of dragon-fly, called the musquito hawk, which wheeled
through their retreats, swallowing its prey without a momentary
diminution of its speed. But the temporary relief that we had hoped for
was only an exchange of tormentors: our new assailant, the horse-fly, or
bull-dog, ranged in the hottest glare of the sun, and carried off a
portion of flesh at each attack. Another noxious insect, the smallest,
but not the least formidable, was the sand-fly known in Canada by the
name of the _brulot_. To such annoyance all travellers must submit, and
it would be unworthy to complain of that grievance in the pursuit of
knowledge, which is endured for the sake of profit. This detail of it
has only been as an excuse for the scantiness of our observations on
the most interesting part of the country through which we passed.

The north side of the Methye Portage is in latitude 56 deg. 41' 40" N. and
longitude 109 deg. 52' 0" W. It is, by our course, one hundred and
twenty-four miles from Isle a la Crosse, and considered as a branch of
the Missinippi, five hundred and ninety-two miles from the Frog Portage.
The Clear Water River passing through the valley, described above,
evidently rises not far to the eastward. The height, computed by the
same mode as that of the Echiamamis{50}, by allowing a foot for each
mile of distance, and six feet on an average, for each fall and rapid,
is two thousand four hundred and sixty-seven feet above the level of the
sea, admitting it to be nine hundred feet above the Clear Water River.
The country, in a line between it and the mouth of Mackenzie's River, is
a continual descent, although to the eastward of that line, there may be
several heights between it and the Arctic Sea. To the eastward, the
lands descend to Hudson's Bay; and to the westward also, till the
Athabasca River cuts through it, from whence it ascends to the Rocky