﻿1848. ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 171 



pitch, and such other repairs made as were neces- 

 sary. I had intended to give them additional 

 false keels at this place, to render them safer and 

 more weatherly at sea, and, with this view, had 

 long bolts and screws prepared at Portsmouth dock- 

 yard, to fit plates sunk in the keels ; but the bolts 

 were unluckily left behind at Cumberland House, 

 Mr. Bell not being aware of the purpose for which 

 they were designed, and we could not spare time to 

 make others. All our preparations having been 

 made on the 23rd, we left the fort on the 24th at 

 5 A. M., and three hours afterwards had the first 

 sight of the Rocky Mountains. In nine hours we 

 were exactly opposite the end of the first range, 

 where the Mackenzie, seemingly to avoid the barrier 

 formed by the mountains, makes a sudden flexure 

 from a north-west course to a north-north-east 

 one. 



Here I must interrupt the narrative for a little, to 

 give some account of the geological structure of 

 the country through which the Mackenzie flows. 



When the mountains are first seen in descending 

 the river, they present an assemblage of conical 

 peaks, rising apparently about two thousand feet 

 above the valley ; and it is not until we come op- 

 posite to the end of the first mountain, that we 

 observe them to be disposed in parallel ridges 

 having a direction of about south-south-west and 



