Mr. Elihu Stewart (See p. 136), describing his trip to the far north before the Senate committee of 1907, said that after leaving Lake Athabaska there is rock along the Athabaska, but there are plains, said to be good land, extending from Slave lake down to Peace river. Below Fort Smith there is a deposit of alluvial soil very similar in appearance and in character to that of the prairie, extending as far as Rocky mountains, below Fort Simpson, and even along the valley then all the way down as far as Mr. Stewart went. It was a surprise to him. Mr. Stewart was at Fort Providence on July 15, 1906. Fort Providence is near Slave lake, on Mackenzie river, in latitude 61·25°. This is nine hundred and seventeen miles by travelled route from Athabaska, but, as near as Mr. Stewart could calculate it, about five hundred and fifty miles farther north than Edmonton. He saw there on July 15 wheat in the milk, potatoes in flower, peas fit for use, tomatoes, turnips, rhubarb, beets, cabbage, onions, and other garden vegetables. The tomatoes were not fully formed, and Mr. Stewart did not think they ripened. They grew them under glass. The strawberries ripen at any time; in fact they had ripe strawberries before that, also raspberries, currants, gooseberries and saskatoons. The wheat that Mr. Stewart saw there was just in milk. He inquired when it was sown, and was told May 20. It seemed incredible, until it was remembered that there is scarcely any darkness during summer there. There were about twenty hours’ sun each day, and the heat was greater for several days than anything Mr. Stewart had ever experienced in Ottawa. Along the lower Athabaska and at Chipewyan, Mr. Stewart and his fellow travellers had it over one hundred in the shade for several days. There was a thermometer on the steamer in the shade. Perhaps the heat was greater on the boat than it would have been ashore. Certainly it was exceedingly hot weather, and continued all night. There was very little night at that time. The hot wave extended down to the Arctic sea as Mr. Stewart ascertained from Indians who had come from Rampart House, near the Alaskan boundary, to meet the steamer, the “Wrigley.” He returned with them instead of coming back with the boat, and they lost two of their dogs from the heat, and that in the Arctic circle. From his observations along the river, that portion of the Mackenzie he travelled through presented a better appearance than Athabaska basin. He did not see much hay around Slave lake. He was not travelling through the country there. NINE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY MILES NORTH OF EDMONTON.