422 



THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. 



[Vol, 



IX. 



and Canada Pacific Railways ; International Boundary Surveys ; 

 tlie Geological Surveys of the American and Canadian Govern- 

 ments. These have all resulted in a surprising extension of 

 geographical knowledge, without any of them having it particu- 

 larly in view. It was a bold figure of speech of Lord Dufi"erin's 

 which described the Rocky Mountains in 1877 as being nearly 

 ' as full of theodolites as they could hold,' but the Dominion 

 Government has spent about three-quarters of a million sterling 

 on explorations or surveys for their railway, and we have only 

 to glance at a recent map to discover nine sovereign states, and 

 nine territories, west of the Mississippi, bounded by right lines, 

 which neither war nor diplomacy has determined, laid out like 

 garden-plots, to see that neither x\sia nor Africa have unfolded 

 more of their secrets in our times, than has the nobler continent 

 where Britain has cast her swarms. 



" The thoroughness characteristic of the scientific operations 

 of the American Government has been greatly favoured by the 

 physical features of the region of their trigonometrical survey, 

 in the American Cordilleras. Sharp rocky peaks, bare of vege- 

 tation, rise to altitudes of 10,000 to 12,000 feet, at convenient 

 distances of 60 to 80 miles apart, so situated as to form well- 

 conditioned triangles, while the purity of the atmosphere makes 

 observation easy. In this manner has an immense region com- 

 prising some 87,000 square miles in Nevada, Utah, and Colorado, 

 been topographically surveyed since 1867 : not indeed with the 

 detail of a European national survey, but with all the accuracy 

 required for first settlement. The two pre-historic seas, now 

 designated Lake Bonneville, of which Salt Lake is the remains, 

 and Lake La Hontan, already referred to, have been defined, and 

 facts of remarkable physical interest have been ascertained. The 

 evaporation of Great Salt Lake, 'or example, is no longer in 

 excess of its annual tribute; it has risen 11 feet since 1866. 

 The natural basis of Pyramid Lake is now full, its level has 

 risen 9 feet, and the overflow is filling up Winnemucca Lake in 

 like manner ; the latter lake has risen 22 feet, and its area has 

 doubled within the same short period. We cannot allow the 

 geologists to monopolise the interest of these physical changes, 

 which the magnificent volume of Mr. Clarence King has pre- 

 sented to them. 



" Lying a little to the e ist and south of the region just 

 referred to is another, which includes yet loftier mountains, and 



