Riding on, we reached Fort Abercrombie at noon. It is situated in Dakota, on the west bank of the Red River, which we crossed by a rope ferry. It is a resting-place for the thousands of teams passing between St. Cloud and Fort Garry, and other places in the far Northwest. The place is of no particular account except as a distributing point for government supplies for forts farther on, and the advancement of civilization will soon enable the War Department to break up the establishment. The river is fringed with timber. We ride beneath stately oaks growing upon the bottom-lands, and notice upon the trees the high-water marks of former years. The stream is very winding, and when the spring rains come on the rise is as great, though not usually so rapid, as in the Merrimac and Connecticut, and other rivers of the East. The valley of the Red River is not such as we are accustomed to see in the East, bounded by hills or mountains, but a level plain. When the sky is clear and the air serene, we can catch far away in the east the faint outline of the Leaf Hills, composing the low ridge between the Red River and the Mississippi, but westward there is nothing to bound the sight. The dead level reaches on and on to the rolling prairies of the Upper Missouri. The eye rests only upon the magnificent carpet, bright with wild roses and petunias, lilies and harebells, which Nature has unrolled upon the floor of this gorgeous palace. I had been slow to believe all that had been told in regard to the genial climate of the Northwest, but through the courtesy of the commandant of the Fort, General Hunt, was permitted to see the meteorological records kept at the post. The summer of 1868 was excessively warm in the Western, Middle, and Atlantic States. Here, on one day in July, the mercury rose to ninety degrees, Fahrenheit, but the mean temperature for the month was seventy-nine. In August the highest temperature was eighty-eight, the lowest fifty, the mean sixty-nine. In September the highest temperature was seventy-four, the mean forty-seven. A slight frost occurred on the night of the 16th, and a hard one on the last day of the month. In October a few flakes of snow fell on the 27th. In November there were a few inches of snow. Toward the close of December, on one day, the mercury reached twenty-seven below zero. On the 30th of January it dropped to thirty below. During this month there were four days on which snow fell, and in February there were ten snowy days. The greatest depth of snow during the winter was about eighteen inches, furnishing uninterrupted sleighing from December to March. On the 23d of March wild geese and ducks appeared, winging their way to Lake Winnipeg and Hudson Bay. The spring opened early in April. There are no farms as yet in the valley,--the few settlers cultivating only small patches of land.