June 25, I860.] LATEST EXPLORATIONS IN BRITISH N. AMERICA. 229 



despatches from that place in the end of October. I am sorry to say 

 that I failed in my attempt to find a pass directly from the Sas- 

 katchewan Plains to the valley of Thompson Eiver, the route I 

 suggested to you as best in a previous letter. This failure, how- 

 ever, was not owing to any insuperable rocky barriers, but merely 

 to my having encountered a forest growth so dense and so encum- 

 bered with fallen timber that I had neither men, time, nor provisions 

 to cope with it. As it was, the escape from this region of the 

 mountains was so tedious that we were nearly caught in the snows 

 of the early moimtain- winter ; and at one time 1 thought I should 

 have to abandon most, if not all, of our horses. However, 1 

 managed to bring them all to Colville, without the loss of an animal, 

 by the end of October. I am, of course, not prepared to state that 

 it is possible to run a road through the mountains in the direction 

 I have indicated, but, from what I have seen of the mountains in 

 the neighbourhood of the 52nd parallel of latitude, I hardly think 

 the difficulties to be encountered would be much greater than those 

 of any route farther south and yet north of the 49th parallel. How- 

 ever, until something is known of the country about the head of 

 Thompson Eiver, no opinion can be formed on this point. 



I had to diverge to the south, when I found I could not get 

 through, and striking the Columbia Eiver in lat. 51° 30' n., about 

 60 miles above the boat encampment, followed it up to its source 

 in lat. 50° 7' n., where it originates in two lakes. From its source 

 to the boat encampment, the Columbia flows to the north-west, in a 

 valley from 4 to 6 miles in width, the bottom of which is occu- 

 pied by immense flats, swamps, and lakes, through which the river 

 flows as a great canal, bounded by natural levees. Its current' is 

 sluggish as low as the mouth of Blueberry Eiver, where I struck it, 

 and from this point, if it were ever necessary, it could be with ease 

 navigated to its source. 



The country to the west of the Eocky Mountains is very much 

 broken, consisting of ancient schist and granite bosses. It is on 

 the western limit of this range of country, where the basalts which 

 mark the region of the Cascade range commence, that the Pand- 

 oreille and Chi-milk-i-mean gold-mines are situated : the first on a 

 tributary of the Columbia from the east and about half a mile north 

 of the boundary-line, and the latter from a stream from the Cascade 

 range and somewhere about the 49th parallel. The latter mines 

 are very rich, but of limited extent ; the gold is in large flakes, the 

 average size being like herring-scales. I saw one piece worth 25 

 dollars. 



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