386 THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE BY LAND. 



and richness of tlie gold fields, added to every month 

 by fresh discoveries, would alone be sufficient 

 to render the colony one of our most valuable posses- 

 sions. But the indications that many other of the 

 most valuable minerals will be found in British 

 Columbia, as in the neighbouring state of California, 

 are strong. At present, however, every other pursuit 

 is put aside for that of gold, and the real mineral 

 wealth of the country is little known. Coal, however, 

 crops out at Alexandria, Similkameen, and Burrard's 

 Inlet. In the sister colony of Vancouver are the 

 magnificent beds of coal, which have been already 

 extensively and most successfully worked at Nanaimo 

 for the last four or five years. 



The timber of British Columbia is, of its kind, 

 unequalled. The Douglas pine, with its straight 

 uniform trunk, exceedingly tough and flexible, 

 furnishes the finest masts and spars for the largest 

 vessels. These trees often attain a height of upwards 

 of 300 feet, with a diameter of ten feet. The white 

 pine and the gigantic cypress, the latter exceeding 

 even the Douglas pine in size, grow together with it 

 in vast forests, yielding an almost inexhaustible supply. 

 But perhaps the most striking feature in the resources 

 of British Columbia and Vancouver Island is the extra- 

 ordinary number and variety of the fish, w^hich frequent 

 the shores and swarm in all the rivers. In the spring 

 two kinds of salmon ascend the Eraser, milHons of 

 *'hoolicans" crowd into its mouth, and shoals of 

 herrings enter every inlet. The hoolican is like a 

 s^^rat, but a little larger, and is a very dehcious fish, 



