ROUND TRIP BETWEEN IOWA AND PUGET SOUND. 239' 



hardy in the narration, but not so when there are mountain tops 

 ahead with glaciers, mountain lakes, great snow fields and other 

 wonderful things to be seen. 



When one is transported in twenty-four hours from several 

 weeks of collecting at sea level and on small island elevations 

 not exceeding 2,400 feet, with only a few alpine forms, to alti- 

 tudes ranging from 4,000 to 10,800 feet, in a region that is all 

 mountainous, the floral change is a remarkable one. With the 

 writer it was the lichens that attracted attention as being nearly 

 all of different species from those commonly seen at lower alti- 

 tudes. Fortunate it was that the alpine lichens are so plentiful 

 in the lowest parts of the Illecillewaet valley at Glacier and that 

 there was no possibility of climbing to gTeat height the first day 

 on account of the time consumed in collecting them. Thus it 

 happened that the first climb up a trail at Eogcr's Pass did not 

 exceed 1,500 feet, barely reaching the lower end of an insignifi- 

 cant glacier, beyond which could be seen larger glaciers and snow 

 fields in considerable numbers. The lichens seen were all fa- 

 miliar through herbarium specimens, but many of them the 

 writer had never seen growing before, and the exhilaration of 

 collecting them was sufiicient reward for the first day's work. To 

 another botanist, the alpine seed plants might be the source of 

 satisfaction, to another the mosses or some other plants, and thus 

 we should all find something in the flora to impress us very 

 forcibly. 



On the second day the trail was followed to the base of the 

 great Illecillewaet Glacier, thence along the left side of the gla- 

 cier nearly to its summit, reaching an elevation of about seven 

 thousand five hundred feet, or more than three thousand feet 

 above the Illecillewaet valley. The climb was hard enougli, but 

 still to the left, cut off by impassable glacial torrents, stood the 

 snow-capped Sir Donald, another three thousand feet higher. 

 Lateral moraines were examined, those nearest the side of the 

 glacier being youngest and bearing no vegetation, the next bear- 

 ing a few lichens and older ones more lichens, mosses and some 

 small seed-plants, while still older morainic material, from a 



