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saturated is the atmosphere that we were forced to resort to the 
laborious process of stove heat to dry our papers. Very few of 
our plants moulded, however, due to our care and to the precau- 
tion of poisoning our blotters before we left Seattle. Juneau has 
a reputation for more rain than Chilcat or Sitka, and a botanist 
friend speaks with enthusiasm of the clear, dry air he experienced 
in a short trip of thirteen days up the coast. 
A delightful excursion from here is up Gold Creek Cafion for 
four miles and a half to Silver Bow Basin, a high level tract of a 
mile in width, completely shut in by mountains. In following 
Gold Creek up through the cafion we make a rise of two thou- 
sand feet, and for the whole distance we are charmed with the 
scenery, for the stream winds in among the mountains in such 
fashion as to open continually new vistas with other snowy sum- 
mits. Here are alders and willows, with blackberry bushes for the 
undergrowth, the Picea Sitchensis raising its fair straight trunks 
above them. Ferns are abundant: Aspidinm spinulosum, Poly- 
podium vulgare, with other old friends, Adiantum pedatum, 
Cysopteris fragilis and the Beech ferns, Phegopteris Dryopterts 
and polypodioides. Pteris aquilina is here too, but is three, four oF 
five feet high, and its downy fronds show it to be the var. lanu- 
Stnosa. All the ferns are tall, but are familiar forms, the C7y/- 
gramme acrostichoides being an exception to this rule. This is 
to be found covering the barren rocks of a landslide or the debris 
left from the miners’ blasts. Agudlegia formosa, Aconitum, Cam- 
panula, Circea, Galium and Saxifraga are found in profusion. 
The Asters are of the division with narrow linear leaves, dark 
green in color, the heads being large, deep violet, with loosely 
imbricated involucres. 
Geranium erianthum, the western form of our maculatim, 
differs little from it except in color and texture, but its pure blue 
blossoms are much more lovely. The Saxifragas are omnipresent 
in many plumy graceful shapes, and the Streptopus is another 
plant always to be met with. Mosses clothe every place left un- 
trimmed with flowers. 
: Reaching the basin, we come to the largest placer gold-mine 
in the world, worked by mountain streams brought to bear up0? 
the disintegrated rock by means of immense hydraulic rams, the 
