41 markets of the world. In this region there is said to be about 1,000,000 acres of actual prairie land and by the summer of 1916 practically all of this had already been taken up in homesteads, leaving only the partly or wholly wooded ' country for the future homesteader. In the basin of Athabaska river agricultural communities are growing about Lesser Slave lake, Athabaska, lac la Biche, and McMurray, all of which except McMurray are already served by railways. Most of this country is, however, a forested region, the percentage of prairie being much smaller than in the Peace River country, consequently development will be much slower. The crops grown in these localities are mainly vegetables,and the hardier grains, just as in the Edmonton district. Mixed farming is generally practised throughout the whole district, but, as in the Peace River country, only a small proportion of the total available is as yet taken up. Farming and ranching operations on a small scale are being undertaken by the Roman Catholic Mission on Salt plain (Plate VI), a few miles west of Fort Smith. In this region there are several thousand acres of prairie or partly open country covered with a variety of fodder grasses, making an excellent range for horses and cattle. It originally formed a part of the range of the wood buffalo, but is now overrun by the horses of the residents of Fitzgerald and Fort Smith, which winter out on the plain. The Mission in 1916 had about 100° head of cattle and a few horses, and ground has been broken on which a variety of vegetables, barley, and oats have been successfully grown. CLIMATE Since the basin of Mackenzie river extends over about 17 degree’ of latitude its climate is necessarily of such variety that it cannot be discussed satisfactorily in a general way. The summer climate of the Mackenzie basin, however, is not so much governed by lat‘tude as the winter climate, for the isotherms for summer run in a northwesterly direction almost parallel to the length of the basin indicating a uniformity of temperature in that direction. The 55 degrees summer isotherm, for example, runs from Kenora on lake of the Woods northwesterly to the east of lake Winnipeg and thence through the east end of lake Atha- baska, the middle of Great Slave lake, and the west end of Great Bear lake to Good Hope on the Arctic circle where it swings west into the mountains. The isotherms for the year, however, show a closer coincidence with the lines of latitude and indicate a decrease in temperature with an increase in latitude This is due not so much to lower extremes of temperature in the northern latitudes as to a longer period of low temperatures in those regions throughout the year. The high latitude of, for example, Simpson at the mouth of Liard river, means a long cold winter and a short but warm summer. It involves also, however, a great increase in the amount of possible sunshine during the importani growing period from May 15 to August 15, Compared with Ottawa, Simpson has an average of three hours more sunlight daily for the summer months, which means about eighteen days of additional sunshine during the three months when sunshine is most important. In general it may be said that any ‘point in the Mackenzie basin has a milder climate than any corresponding point of the same latitude in northern Manitoba, Ontario, or Quebec, probably because it is farther removed from the chilling influence'of the large body of water, frozen for a great part of ase Sn ef ate age a