THE TEIiEACES OF FEASER EIVER. 79 



Mountains. The interesting features of the region in question are the Lake- 

 like expansions of tlie rivers, and the remarivable reguhirity and develop- 

 ment of the terraces -with which lakes and rivers are almost everywhere bor- 

 dered. Some of the streams are almost unbroken lines of narrow lakes with 

 short connecting river portions between ; as, for instance, the Columbia and 

 the Okana^an. The general direction of these lakes is either parallel to that 

 of the enclosing ranges or at right angles to it. A glance at a map of Brit- 

 ish Columbia will show better than words the position and the peculiar 

 orographic development of these wonderful expansions of the rivers. 



The terraces of Fraser River and its affluents have been repeatedly noticed 

 by scientific explorers and other travellers, although not as yet described 

 with accuracy.* These terraces, or benches as they are usually called in 

 that region, seem to be found almost everywhere on the Fraser and Columbia 

 and their branches. They are often very numerous, there being near Lil- 

 louett, for instance, as many as fifteen or sixteen. Some observers notice the 

 fact that for a long distance on the main Fraser there are three such 

 benches, of exactly similar height on each side of the river, the highest of 

 which is about 500 feet above the present level of the water.f Although it 

 seems to be nowhere positively stated that these benches slope Avith the 

 bottom of the river valleys along which they occur, there can be no doubt 

 that such is the fact. Like all, or almost all, such terrace formations, they 

 are the indications of a former higher stage of the water in the streams. 

 The country has been gradually relieved of a portion of its surplus water, 

 not by its elevation above the sea-level having been increased, as is often 

 supposed, nor by the bursting of successive barriers along the course of the 

 vallej-s, a theory even less tenable than the other; but simply because the 

 quantity of water now passing down these valleys is fiir less than it formerly 

 was. This condition is in entire coincidence with all the facts developed by 

 geological investigation on the Pacific Coast, as has already been abundantly 

 set forth in the volume devoted to the Auriferous Gravels. 



The questions which at present concern us particularly are, whether there 



* See Report of Progress of Geological Surve)- of Ciuiaila for 1S71-72, p. 5.t ; Milton and Cheadle, The 

 Northwest Passage by Lanil ; G. JI. Dawson, in Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, Vol. XXXIV. p. Ill; 

 Proceedings of the Royal. Geogi-aphical Society, Vol. XV. p. 133, where a paper on these terraces, wiitten liy II. R. 

 Begbie, will be found, together with aj^pended remarks by Dr. Cheadle and others. 



t Mr. G. M. Dawson claims to have founil terraces at much greater elevations. He says "the highest perfectly 

 distinct line was estimated to reach l,.5(iO feet," that is, above the level of the river. This detrital accumulation 

 he thinks may possibly have been an old moraine " of a great glacier which has filled the valley." 



