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 OF MANITOB/c. 
 
 TRANSACTION NO, 22. SEASON 1886. 
 
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 41 
 
 Climatic Conditions of the North- West, 1 
 
 4E 
 45 
 
 -BY — 
 
 A. BOWERMAN, M. A. 
 
 Frinoipaij Oollbqiatb Dspt. Winnipeg Public Sohoolb. 
 
 A PAPER READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY ON THE EVENING 
 OF APRIL 22nd, 1886, 
 
 MANITOBA FUlili MlESS PUINT, 
 i8S6, 
 
 fl^ii(Tif)itiii(nfiini)fhi)ffii)(fifiiTifl(M)n(f)fl(TinirifrM<rkniniiii)(r(iift^ 
 
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AND 
 
 OTHER CLIMATIC CONDITIONS OF THE NORTH-WEST. 
 
 .^ 
 
 
 Some one hM aaid "The olioiate noakes 
 the countiy". If this propositiou is only 
 meMurably true— and there seems no 
 doubt of it — there are few questions of 
 greater importance in connection with 
 capacities and future prospects of our 
 land. It may have been noticed how 
 readily the citizens of our country, having 
 grown proud of the country, become like- 
 wise proud of the climate. If climate 
 were a nutter of latitude merely, and 
 zones of temperature coincided wiUi the 
 parallels, the question would be as simple 
 as the matter of day and night, the ad- 
 vancing sun giving summer, and Uie 
 declining sun, winter. But searching into 
 the matter of a difference of temperature 
 in the same latitude, we become aware of 
 the fact that summer has its cold and 
 winter its heat in various loodities, in a 
 way not at all in accordance with latitude 
 or season. For instance spring opens 
 about the same time at Fargo, Winnipeg, 
 Battleford, and Peace River. So the 
 matter is more complex, and without 
 committing ourselves to a search after 
 storms or local disturbances we have a 
 wide field for investigation. It would 
 be counted a strange method to open 
 up the question of our climate with 
 a consideration of a phenomenen oc- 
 curring 1.000 miles west, but our 
 ideas reaaily adapt themselves to the 
 larf^ness of our land. " No pent-up 
 Utioa contracts our powers, but the 
 whole boundless continent is ours," and 
 we easily resard the Rockies as only just 
 the other side of our horiEon. Moreover, 
 it will appear on enquiry that the Ohinook 
 Winds are intimately connected with the 
 whole question of our climate. These 
 winds are noticed by the observer as com- 
 ing down in the depth of winter from the 
 snow-covered mountains so warm and dry 
 as to cause the total disappearance of the 
 snow in a few hours. Most striking 
 along the mountains near Oalgary, yet 
 some effect has been noticed as far east 
 as the boundary of Manitoba, and even as 
 
 far as the Arctic Circle, there are days of 
 decided thawina in the month of January. 
 (The Ohinook Winds are so called from the 
 tribe of Indians of that name in British 
 Columbia.) So hard is it to credit the 
 evidence of our senses that the common 
 description of these winds is that they 
 come through the passes of the moun- 
 tains, from the Pacific — a wonder none 
 the less than that which it is supposed 
 to explain. One observer of some note, 
 indeed, hazurds the conjecture that 
 the warm winds of the Gulf of Mexico 
 reach all the way up north, over the 
 high i^ateau of the great American 
 desert, over the still higher mass of hot 
 and rarified air overhanging this desert, 
 and drop conveniently on our lower 
 plains to the north. But as this writer 
 — of deserved repute in his own depart- 
 ment — manifestly confounds the lines of 
 equal heat with the direction of the 
 winds, we may be excused from giving 
 much consideration to his theory. For- 
 tunately, we have sufficient data of a 
 strictly reasonable and scientific kind, 
 without indulging in conjectures which, 
 too often,ar. the only support of theories 
 on climate or the weather. 
 
 A very brief statement of a few points 
 in physical geography may be necessary 
 as a prelude to the oonaideration of the 
 matter before us. 
 
 Joseph Cook, of Boston, said a few 
 days ago that the first question he 
 would ask a class in physical p»ography 
 would be the following: Suppoau the 
 earth were to turn the other way on its 
 axis, what would be the effect on the 
 climate ot North America) Not altogether 
 an insoluble conundrum, perhaps, with a 
 little thinking. As it is soirte time 
 perhaps since most of us have been at 
 school, we may rehearse a shurt lesson en 
 the Trade winds. Heated air at the 
 Bquator rises and is replaced by a rush 
 from the North and South. As this air 
 comes from a part of earth having slower 
 motion, the earth turning towards the 
 
2 
 
 East leaves the air behi and eauses 
 thus a N.E. wind, north ihe Equator, 
 and a S.E. wind south of .he Equator. 
 These winds blow steadily and are known 
 as the Trade Winds. (It is well to bear 
 in mind just here that, with evidant 
 modifications, from the shape of the 
 continents, the ocean currents are govern- 
 ed by the same laws. ) Outside of the region 
 of trade winds, i. e., from 30 ^ to 60 *=* 
 north lat. is a zone noted for its alter- 
 nate winds; winds from the southwest 
 alternately with winds from the northeast 
 — the seuthwest prevailing. This is the 
 belt of the Return Timdes, or Anti- 
 Trades. As the trade winds get their di- 
 rection from the motion of the earth, 
 which glides, as it were, from under the 
 cool winds moving equator-wards — so the 
 anti-trades passing aortiiwards retain the 
 westward motion gained at the equator, 
 and in lati*ade<» not so progressive they 
 outstrip the motion of die earth and 
 thus give rise to southwest winds. 
 But these have not the persistency of the 
 genuine trades of the equatorial regions, 
 and so merely alternate with the 
 polar winds from the northeast. 
 Such being the state of things in 
 the wide belt including such a great 
 part of the continent, we may now take 
 up the local modifying influences. Con- 
 sulting our map, we notice a lofty barrier 
 along the west coast — in fact a number of 
 successive ranges of mountains. The 
 point most interesting to us is where the 
 coast range is broken by tilie inlet called 
 the Straits of San Juan. And here let me 
 call attention to the peculiar elbow made 
 by the ranges nearest the ocean, the direct- 
 ion changmg from due north to north- 
 west — best seen on a glebe. Next note 
 that all the ranges are much lower here 
 than further south. The coast range 
 south of 49 rises up like a great wall, 
 and the inner ranges are still loftier. 
 North of 49° the mountains decline, ex- 
 cept some peaks, till in Alaska they 
 become quite low. The number of passes 
 too and their low elevation were long re- 
 marked in view of the prospect of a rail- 
 w»v through Oanaaa. Then the 
 valleys of the Fraswr and Columbia 
 give unmistakeable hints of passages 
 through the mountains, which furnished 
 a pathway for the winds Ions 
 ages before the adventurous railroad 
 builder threaded his wvy across and 
 through tiie labyrinth. The southwest 
 winds then,blowing warm from the Japan 
 Current, the Golf Stream of the PMifio, 
 
 brought to a focus, as it were, in this 
 angle of the mountains, crowd onward 
 through the river valleys, over the lower 
 ranges, across the sea of mountains of 
 British Oolmnbia,andfinally breastiag the 
 last great wall of the Rooky Mountains, 
 make their final leap down into the plains 
 below. 
 
 Having thus traced their oonrse over 
 the mountainr, let us inquire into their 
 adventures in this journey of 600 miles. 
 
 On leaving the Pacific they are warm 
 and heavily bden with moisture. The 
 first range they meet takes toll from their 
 burden. Heavy clouds are formed and 
 rain falls. The process is repeated at 
 each successive range. In higher regions 
 the icanty supply of moisture now be- 
 comes snow. In lofty altitudes, almost 
 completely robbed of moisture, they be- 
 come greatly n. aed and very cold.* 
 Moistdre is g[onc and heat is gone. Our 
 problem is stil! unsolved. 
 
 Let us now retrace our steps to the coast, 
 and examine iato the question of heat, for 
 modem sor.ence declares that that is 
 never lost tuay more than any other force 
 of Nature. We find that in each con- 
 densation, first cloud, then rain and 
 snow, heat ia produced — to speak ac- 
 curately, la'^ent heat becomes sensible. 
 Bain and snow remain behind, are lost 
 absolutely to the air currents. Not so 
 the heat' this remains with the air, 
 and seemb to be increased. But in 
 the lofty regions of the Moun- 
 tains rarefaction takes place, and 
 this uses up heat. It requires heat to 
 
 E reduce rarefaction, or disappearance of 
 eat accompanies rarefaction, put it 
 which way you will, the heat is not lost, 
 and when, pouring down the mountain 
 side, the great volume of dry air becomes 
 condensed again in lower altitudes, this 
 heat, latent away up in the lofty peaks, 
 now comes out from its hiding-place, and 
 the dr];[ and warm air proceeds to business 
 hj ' ^king up the snow, not leaving be- 
 hind even the moisture caused bv its 
 melting. We are speaking now of the 
 winter. Not much heat can be lost in 
 contact with the dry snow, and what is 
 lost by radiation into space may be made 
 
 * In spite ot the great odd of the lofty range 
 of the RookF Mountains proper, the snow line 
 Ih muoh higher than In the ooost ranges, and 
 glaciers are oomparstlvely rare, the aimple 
 reason being that the mokturo of the air ia ex- 
 hausted on the first range and there is not auffl- 
 dent snow to form glaoien. This dlfflereBoe in 
 the height of the snew line in the Sierra Nevad- 
 aa and Kooldos in the same latitude aroounte to 
 8.600 feet. 
 
9 
 
 up by the heat of the sun c*^ en in the 
 short days of winter. This in brief is the 
 explanatiea of the Chinook winds. 
 
 Some other considerations remain to be 
 noticed. The time, as I have just said, 
 is winter. In the long melting days 
 of early summer, over the dissolving 
 snows of the ravines and warm slopes, 
 over thousands of foaming torrents 
 and countless rivulets, the air in- 
 stead of gaining heat now loses 
 it by the reverse operations of lique- 
 faction and evaporation and thus 
 o.hilled it drops on the ill-fated potato 
 patch in the form of June frost. 
 
 This matter of heat being absorbed by 
 thawing and set free by freezing is one 
 of common observation. The chilly feeling 
 of a March or April day is shiveringly in 
 the memory of dl of us who in early life 
 braved the inclement skies of Ontario. 
 And some of us have known the farmer's 
 plan of saving his potatoes by carrying 
 water into the cellar on an extra cold 
 night — ^^the water giving off in the process 
 of freezing, heat sujficient to save the 
 vegetables. Of course the process does 
 not go on ad infinitum. But the process 
 of heat disappearing by the rarefaction 
 of air and beaming sensible again on re- 
 condensing — this is not so much within 
 the range of our daily experience. The 
 falling of the barometer before a storm is 
 due to rarefaction of the air, and we have 
 all noted the increasing ooolness at such 
 a time, though almost invariably this is 
 accompanied by the formation «f clouds 
 which quickly shut cut our great source 
 of heat, the sun, so that the lesser cause 
 of ooolness is obscured by the greater. 
 Those who have ascended mountain peaks 
 have observed (1) the nuri^ of the air 
 and (2) the ooolness. They may now 
 consider if the Utter is caused by the 
 former as post hoc is not always propter 
 hoc. 
 
 Suppose they are not related as cause 
 and effecc, but only aooidentiJly. Then, 
 first, why is it it warmer near the sea-leveli 
 It cannot be the earth simply which gives 
 the heat, for then, a high plain, or even 
 a mountain peak, might be as hot as the 
 low level, and second, we know that 
 heated air rises, so the higher the eleva- 
 tion the warmer should be the air. The 
 fact is, nature does not work for nothing, 
 or with nothing. If a gas, air for exam- 
 ple, becomes rarified— and it will if it 
 gets a chance— heat is used np in the 
 process. And when the re-condensing 
 takcM place the heat ia given off again, 
 
 all of it. Nature is not a banker and 
 knows nothing of discount. When a 
 spring is compressed, its power lies dor- 
 mant. You wind up your watch, you 
 are only storing up the force exerted by 
 the muscles of your fingers* and the 
 spring will give back all the force again, 
 minus the friction, of course. I have 
 dwelt at some length on this point be- 
 cause it is one in which the greatest in- 
 credulity is manifested, and all sorts of 
 theories have been projected from the 
 refusal to believe that warm winds can 
 come from snow-clad mountains. 
 
 When l^ir Alexander MacKenzie first 
 wintered on the Peace Biver, away up in 
 lat. 56®, like a second Balbea, looking 
 out in his mind's eye over the great 
 Pacific, he saw the striking effect 
 of these south-west winds and noted in 
 his journal that the ocean could not be 
 far away. Little did be think that nearly 
 600 miles of rough mountain lay between 
 him and its warm shores. This was in 
 1792. He remarked the difference be- 
 tween the effect there at the mouth of 
 Smoky River, where the snow disappear- 
 ed in a few hours, and at Fort Ohipew- 
 yan on Lake Athabasca, 300 miles fur- 
 ther east, where no thaw occurred,though 
 the wind brouehtdelightful clear weather. 
 It is only a lew years since one of those 
 indefatigable slaves of nature, a German 
 doctor — what should wo know but for the 
 German doctoral— worked out a mathe- 
 matical demonstration of the amount of 
 heat made latent by rarefaction in the 
 higher altitudes and regained by conden- 
 sation; and, still more, the amount of 
 heat caused by the precipitation of moist- 
 ure as the wind rises up the 
 slope of the mountain. This cal- 
 culation, 1 may say, seems to have 
 been undertaken to solve the same prob- 
 lem in Europe, for they have, it seems, 
 Chinook winds under the lee of the Alps 
 and the mountains of Norway, only Chi- 
 nook is not the German name of it. It is 
 said that even the west coast of Green- 
 land is visited by such a wind coming 
 over the elevated land of the interior. 
 Not to pursue the somewhat wearisome 
 details, we may briefly outline the calcc'<- 
 lation. The estimated heat lost in thut 
 ascent of the mountain slope by rarefac- 
 tion is 1 ® 0. for each 100 metres of ele- 
 vation, and 1 ® of course is regained in 
 falling. But as we have seen that con- 
 sideraole heat is given off by the 
 condensation of vapor to rain and snow, 
 
 this loss of 1 <3 u reduced to ^ « 0. 
 
«» 
 
 per 100 metroi — or truulating into our 
 own leas civilized scale of measurement, 
 !<=* F. equal 5-9 » 0.; and calling the 
 metre 39 inohee, we have 1 ^ F. loat for 
 each 345 feet. Now, supposing an alti- 
 tude of 6,900 feet for the main range of 
 the Bookie* (a slight exaggera 
 tion), we have a loss of 20° of 
 heat. But in descending the moun- 
 tains again 1® F. is gained for each 
 172 feet of fall. Taking Calgary at 4,000 
 feet in altitude, there is a descent of 
 2,900 feet, equivalent to a gain of 17° F. 
 nearly. In we Peace River country the 
 result Is more striking, as the height is 
 only 2,300 feet, and therefore the fall is 
 much greater. The mean winter tem- 
 perature of the Pacific for a wide zone off 
 the coast of North America is given at 66° 
 F. The problem is simply 66 <=> less 20 <=> , 
 plus 17— a net loss of 3 <=> , leaving 63 <=* 
 as Uie heat of our chinook winds m the 
 region of Oalgary. [I am sorry not to 
 have had the privilege of access to any 
 statistics of observations in the locality 
 of Oalgary. With more time for corres- 
 pondence I hope to be able to compare 
 my figure with the results of observa- 
 tions.] In this estimate we are not 
 bound to take the mean winter tempera- 
 ture of the ocean, but rather we should 
 take the temperature of winds with sufli- 
 oient force to carry them over 500 miles 
 of Mountain ranges. These winds come 
 from the southwest far away over the 
 ocean, and not cooled b^ the colder cur- 
 rent along the coast inside of the Japan 
 Ourrent. 
 
 We have constantly to remember the 
 looseness that prevails in our ideas of 
 heat and oold. Two quite different stan- 
 dards prevail, one the thermometer, the 
 other our feelings- In summer 40 ° F. is 
 quite too near the freezing point to be 
 pleasant, while as we all know anything 
 n«ar zero in the winter is bracing and de- 
 lightful. But water freezes and snow 
 melts, not by our feelings but by the 
 thermometer. 35 ° F. with dry air is 
 quite sufficient to remove six inches of 
 new-fallen snow. And we must not think 
 of these winds as constant. They alter- 
 nate with their contending brothers from 
 the north, this belt of ^temate winds 
 oxtendins Mound the whole globe. 
 
 In the somewhat limited range of my 
 search there is no part of the globe r^ard- 
 ing which statistics ot winds are so measre 
 as in the region under consideration. Yet 
 the conditions are evident, and now that 
 the facts ara becoming known, the corre- 
 
 spondence between them is not wonderful. 
 The fact is simply this: The great fertile 
 belt lies just on the border where the 
 polar winds, somewhat moist and 
 decidrdiy cold, meet and contend with 
 tht liuHted air from the Pacific, dried but 
 only partially cooled by the mountain 
 ranges it has crossed. This contact of 
 beat And oold in the air always produces 
 praoipitntion. rain or snow. The Arctic 
 Sea aui Sudson's Bay, a cold region, do 
 not give ro much moistara as the warm 
 curreiitR of the Pacific. (Hot air holds 
 more vapor than cold.) Hence we have 
 little rain or snow, decreasing fram N. 
 E. to S. W. till in the high dry barren 
 desert country south of 49° the supply 
 is exhausted. In fact the so called Great 
 Desert is in a sense outside of the region 
 of prpoipitation. It is too far from the 
 Arctic and Hudson's Bay to get either 
 rain or snow, which have been evenly 
 distributed over the intervening country, 
 there being no mountain range to iiitercept 
 the clouds. It is too far from the Pacific, 
 for south of latitude 46 ° the mountains 
 are very much wider and higher, forming 
 a barrier to any possible clouds, moreover 
 the plateau itself is very elevated— almost 
 out of the way of any respectable cloud 
 region. Finally, it is out of the way of 
 the Oulf winds, which have quite 
 enough to do to water the Southern 
 and Central States, and lose all 
 their moisture long before they 
 reach this lofty citadel of barrenness. For 
 all that I am far from saying that this 
 same region does not exercise a great in- 
 fluence on the climate of our western 
 plains. A south wind blowing from 
 these elevated plains would largely 
 partake of the nature of the 
 Chinock winds, dry and warm for very 
 much the same reasons and with the same 
 effect. But here in Winnipeg we know 
 that a wind from the south in January 
 has to blow for several days before it pro- 
 duces much effect in the thermometer. 
 Returning again to our Fertile Belt, it 
 may not be superfluous to call attention 
 to the fact that the same cause which now 
 keeps up the fertility of the Great North 
 West, evidently produced that fertility.— 
 Even in ramote ages — geological ages — 
 there must have prevailed the same clim- 
 atic conditions, the same warm Pacific 
 winds, dry to a degrae probably forbidding 
 forest growth, the same colder and damp- 
 er winds from the north, the same mantle 
 of snow and same deep grip of winter's 
 frost to modify the too ardent flame of 
 
our long summer's day, which would 
 otherwise parch the tender shoots of grow- 
 ing )»lants. These conditions must have 
 prevailed since the northern half of 
 the continent has had the shape it now has. 
 
 We may now venture on an answer 
 totJosephCook. Since theprevailing winds 
 and currents of the ocean are caused mainly 
 by the rotation of the earth, in con- 
 jtfnction with the tendency of all fluida 
 to seek the warm region at the equator, 
 as we have seen, it is manifest that a 
 reversal of the direction of the earth 
 would cause a corresponding reversal of 
 the winds and currents. The great 
 Equatorical Ourrent which now sets west- 
 ward with a northward deflection by the 
 coast of South America would then go to 
 the East and turning North from Cape 
 Verde would skirt ^he shores of Spain 
 and Fr4»noe, or more likely would strike 
 away to the North West along the edges 
 of the Arctic Current, which would come 
 down with its Greenland and Norwegian 
 icebergs around the bleak and barren 
 shores of England and Ireland. New- 
 foundland would usurp the climate of the 
 Emerald Isle, the fogs and cedfish and 
 bluenoses would be on the other side of 
 the Atlantic, and ^he warm Eastern 
 breezes from the Gulf Stream (rather now 
 the Biscay Current) would sweep across 
 Quebec and Ontario and Labrador. On the 
 western side of the Continent, the change 
 would be the same in nature but very 
 much leas in degree. For the Pacific 
 would still be independent of Arctic Cur- 
 rents and Japan cou'd exchange places 
 with Vancouver without so great a dis- 
 turbance as Vo bave seen in the case of 
 the Atlantic. 
 
 In our own country, the Fertile Belt 
 would run from N. E. to S. W. The 
 warm breezes from the Atlantic would be 
 felt in some degree, mainly in tempering 
 the cold blasts of Boreas, but in the 
 main our climate would net be improved. 
 But all over the world elsewhere the 
 change would be so great that we might 
 almost say that America would have been 
 discovered from the Pacific. England 
 would have been civilized from Japan and 
 China. The Irish Question would have 
 been settled on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 
 and Joseph Cook, of Boston, would have 
 discoursed of light and sweetness on the 
 sand lots of San Francisco — leaving his 
 brother apostle Matthew Arnold to pro- 
 mulflcate a return to orthodoxy in the 
 progressive islands of Japan. 
 
 * 'Eastward, the Star of Empire holds 
 
 its way " with this new order of things. 
 
 lo conclusion, a brief reference to the 
 geological conditions of our climate and 
 soil. And in this matter I sh«dl venture 
 only a few conjectures. 
 
 It is well known that the Laurentian 
 Range and the Rocky Mountains did not 
 always hold their present relations. The 
 AUeghanies give evidence of some 
 astonishing upheavals and alternate de- 
 pressions. It is more than probable 
 that this range once presented plateaus 
 and peaks compared to which the present 
 Himalayas would be mere dwarfs. With 
 this range, however, we have nothing to 
 do. But similar convulsions of the crust 
 of the earth are equally well evidenced 
 in the case of the mountains in the west 
 and north of the Continent. If observa- 
 tions in the geological ages from a neigh- 
 bouring planet could be imagined, the 
 records of some lunar or Martian 
 patriarch would indicate the startling 
 changes of the mighty ridges of the north 
 and west. 
 
 The old frame work of eur continent, 
 the very first to appear above the archaic 
 waters, has now sunk su lew that we are 
 apt to forget the part it played in the for- 
 mation of our country. 
 
 Once the Rockies weretoolow to obstruct 
 the moisture-laden winds, which thus 
 swept far inland across the plains; the 
 Laurentian range, the true and ancient 
 backbone of the Continent, then reared 
 its lofty head higher than even the 
 RooCy Mountain range, its younger up- 
 start brother, catching the moisture 
 carried all the way from the Pacific and 
 condensing it in the form ef great snow 
 naasses and glaciers, while at the same 
 time, on its northern slope was gathering 
 the icy breath of the Arctic Sea. This 
 was a glacial crest, if not identical with, 
 at least similar to, the great Polur ice- cap 
 of geological times. 
 
 To compensate for this sinking process 
 along the line of the Laurentian, the 
 slopes of the Rockies begin to assume 
 the proportion of mountains. Higher 
 and higher the various ridges contmue to 
 grow till at last the damp winds, no 
 longer able to carry their burdens over 
 the lofty peaks drop them on the western 
 slopes to find their way back to the 
 Pacific. 
 
 Such a state of things furnishes a solu- 
 tion of some of our problems. Mighty 
 glaciers have written their autobiography 
 lu marks and deep grooves over the rocks of 
 Half our continent, a record before which 
 
§ 
 
 the worki of Memphian kings are as in- 
 sisnifioant as they were when compared 
 with Milton's Satanic architects. These 
 glaciers sliding down to the south and 
 west would scarcely yield to anything but 
 the periodical visits of great Sol him- 
 self, the drippings fumisning a *up^ of 
 pure ice water for the Mississippi. Their 
 grinding action made the soil; and 
 the streama and fogs and rains along its 
 borders furnished moisture for the coarse 
 and hardy vegetation of the times. But 
 what thesun, unaided, couldnotaccomplish 
 in the the lofty rarified air of these nrimi- 
 tive peaks, was at last accomplished bv 
 Uie subsidence of the great range itself. 
 
 Back, slowly back, through^ successive 
 centuries the glaciers retreMBd, leaving a 
 great shallow lake between the rear of 
 their baffled oolamns and the 
 newly elevated coasts whence the 
 shortened Mississippi took its rise. 
 Still further centuries and a further sub- 
 sidence drained off even the most of this 
 lake, a mere sluggish and tortuous creek 
 serving to mark the deepest part of the 
 old lake — ^the present Bed River of the 
 north. This immense uplifting of 
 the Bockies effectually shut off the sup- 
 ply of moisture from the Pacific, and 
 thence forward came the present climate 
 of our Northwest. 
 
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