the Eskimo.  In fact the importance of these whale fisheries have of late made the Americans of the United States a little inclined to challenge the British possession of these great Arctic islands.  North Devon, North Somerset, Prince of Wales’ Land, Melville Island, Banks Land, Prince Albert Land, &c. &c, are names of other great Arctic islands completely within the grip of the ice.  The nature of their interior is almost unknown.  They are at present of use to no form of man unless it be to a few wandering Eskimo, who come to their coasts in the summer to kill seals.

The great NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES of the Canadian Dominion extend from the American frontier of Alaska (which is the 141 deg. of W. long.) to the Ungava Peninsula, which abuts on Labrador.  Where this vast region slopes to the Arctic Ocean and Hudson’s Bay it is rather low and flat, except between Alaska and the Mackenzie River, and between the Mackenzie and the watershed of Hudson’s Bay.  The principal river system in the far North-West is that of the great Mackenzie River, which flows into the Arctic Ocean (Beaufort Sea) through an immense delta, and is one of the longest rivers in the world.  The southernmost sources of the Mackenzie (such as the Peace River and the Athabaska River) rise in the Rocky Mountains to the east of British Columbia.  These waters are stored for a time in Lake Athabaska, and then under the name of Slave River flow northwards into the Great Slave Lake, and out of this, under the name of Mackenzie River, into Beaufort Sea, through an immense delta.  The Great Bear Lake is also a feeder of the Mackenzie.

Two other Arctic rivers at one time thought to be of great importance as means of communication with the Arctic Ocean, are the Great Fish River, which flows into Elliot Bay, and the Coppermine River, which enters Coronation Gulf.  The other northward-flowing rivers (passing through innumerable lakes and lakelets) enter Hudson’s Bay.

West of the great Mackenzie River rises the northernmost extension of the Rocky Mountains.  All this easternmost part of Alaska, which is under British control, is a region of great elevation, something like parts of Central Asia.  The streams which rise here unite in the great Yukon River, and this has its outlet in Bering’s Sea.  Some points of the great mountains within the limits of British territory in this direction reach to nearly 20,000 feet (Mount Logan).

But the climate of the northern parts of the Canadian Dominion differs very greatly in the west as compared to the east.  For instance, the northern parts of Labrador are cruelly Arctic, hopelessly frozen, though they are in the same latitude as St. Petersburg (the capital of European Russia) and as the splendidly forested northern parts of British Columbia.  Eastern Labrador is a region in which explorers have frequently perished from cold and starvation.  Although in the lofty parts of the Yukon country (three hundred and fifty miles north of treeless Labrador)