﻿226 ALLUVIAL DELTA. July, 



ones are merely a ring of white spruce trees and 

 willows on a sand or mud bank, enclosing ponds 

 or marshes filled with drift timber. Some of the 

 larger ones have a drier and firmer soil, but are 

 low and even, except near the sea, where a few 

 conical hummocks rise abruptly above the general 

 level to the height of eighty or ninety feet. Sir 

 John Franklin saw these hummocks on Ellice 

 Island ; and, as they occur also near the western 

 boundary of the delta, I shall have occasion to 

 notice them again. The Richardson Mountains, 

 which skirt the western channel of the river, appear 

 like a continuous ridge when viewed from Point 

 Separation ; but it is more probable that they are 

 the termination of a succession of spurs from the 

 main chain of the Rocky Mountains, which come 

 obliquely to the coast of the estuary. The general 

 altitude of the ridges does not apparently exceed 

 one thousand feet ; but some peaks, as Mount 

 Goodenough, Mount Gifford, and Mount Fitton, 

 are perhaps considerably higher. 



In ascending from the west bank of the delta, the 

 brow of the first range is attained at the distance of 

 about forty miles from the river, of which the first 

 four miles are over a low, marshy, alluvial plain, 

 covered with willows. Two or three almost preci- 

 pitous ascents and descents across other mountains 

 bring the traveller to a small stream, called the Rat 

 River, which flows to the westward. This is said 



