No. 7.] AMERICAN GEOGRAPHY. 425 



Jarvis, Horetsky, Keefer, and others, have displayed remarkable 

 daring and endurance. They have forced their way from the 

 interior to the sea-coast or from the coast to the Peace River, 

 Pine or Yellowhead Passes, through country previously unknown, 

 to Port Simpson, to Burke Channel, to the mouth of the Skeena, 

 and to Bute Inlet, so that a region but recently almost a blank 

 on our maps, which John Arrowsmith, our last great authority, 

 left very imperfectly sketched, is now known in great detail, and 

 I regret to add, the better known, the less admired. The botany 

 has been reported on by Mr. Macoun, and the geology by Dr. 

 Dawson, pari passu with its topography. I have great hope 

 that the Section will receive from the last-named traveller in 

 person some account of his many arduous journeys in the prose- 

 cution of geological research. Of these, the latest is the explora- 

 tion of Queen Charlotte Islands, a part of the British possessions, 

 very little known to most of us, although we had a communica- 

 tion on the subject in 1868. He regards them as a partly 

 submerged mountain chain, a continuation north-westward of 

 that of Vancouver's Island and of the Olympian Mountains in 

 Washington Territory. An island, 156 miles long and 56 wide, 

 enjoying a temperate climate, and covered with forests of timber 

 of some value (chiefly Abies Afenziesii), is not likely to be left 

 to nature much longer. But the customs of the natives in regard 

 to the inheritance and transfer of land are unfavorable to settle- 

 ment, and will demand just and wise consideration when the 

 hour comes. It is as much private property as any estate in 

 Wales. 



" Mr. Dawson's report contains a vocabulary of the language, 

 which presents this peculiarity, that the words expressing family 

 relationship vary with the speaker. Thus, ' father,' said by a 

 Bon is Ilaimg ; said by a daughter, is Hah-ta. 'Son,' said by 

 a father, is keet ; said by a mother, is kin. Evidently at some 

 periods the mothers were captives of a diiferent tribe. It would 

 be difi&cult to produce on the globe a more conspicuous example 

 of the beneficent effect of missionary influence, combining indus- 

 trial with religious instruction, than has been presented by the 

 Tsimpsheean Indians at Metla Katla, under Mr. Duncan, a 

 layman commissioned by the Church Missionary Society. 



" I must now call your attention to the remarkable explora- 

 tions, little known in this country, of 1, Abbe Petitot, also a lay 

 missionary (Fr^re Oblat) of the Boman Catholic Church, in the 



