230 LATEST EXPLORATIONS IN BRITISH N. AMERICA. [June 25, 1860 



The season was too late to cross the Cascade range from Colvillo 

 to Fort Langley, so that we were obliged to follow down the 

 Columbia to this place. Our horses gave out on the way, and wo 

 had to take to little dug-out canoes, and descend the river for a 

 long way with considerable labour and risk. We have been very 

 much hampered for ways and means, but some of the gentlemen 

 of the Hudson Bay Company have kindly relieved us from this 

 awkward position on their own responsibility. 



The country here is in a state of complete collapse : a state of 

 reaction from the undue excitement of the last few years. They 

 say, however, that Victoria is very lively, its vitality arising from 

 the capital held by the settlers there, -an item quite wanting 

 among the immigrants to remote parts of the United States. 



We have been received with great kindness by General Harney 

 and the other officers of the American army at the posts we have 

 visited. They are still pretty stiif-necked about the St. Juan aifair, 

 but a great deal of the excitement has evaporated. The troops 

 returned here a few days ago, leaving only one company on the dis- 

 puted island. All impartial persons on either side seem to admit 

 the extreme nicety of the question, and those that have known the 

 country longest, such as the officers of the Hudson Bay Company, 

 seem to be unanimous in hoping that our Government will hold to 

 our interpretation of the treaty, as on the coast it has always been 

 considered as the correct one. 



"When we took to the canoes, we had to leave our instruments 

 and papers, and I am obliged to wait here till they overtake me. 

 Palliser has gone on to Vancouver Island to raise money to allow 

 Sullivan to go home at once. He will wait for me there, and when 

 I arrive we shall return to England, via Panama, at once. 



I hardly think my report can be forwarded by this mail, as I 

 doubt if it can reach Palliser in time, as he has been ice-bound at 

 Portland. 



Notwithstanding my best endeavours, I have a very poor show 

 of fossils from the mountain strata this year. I have a good collec- 

 tion, however, from the coal-bearing strata of the plains. I would 

 like very much to have an opportunity of seeing the coal strata of 

 Vancouver Island, as I expect that they are all of one age, and all 

 older than tertiaries. However, a short conversation with you, 

 when I have the honour of meeting you again in the course of a few 

 months, will, I am sure, throw more light on this and other matters 

 than anything I can write. 



T discovered a second glacier at the head of the north branch of 



