CHAPTER XX 



AVALANCHE AND SLIDE-ROCK 



The "Snow-Slide" — An Ideal Mountain Section — Creek Buried Under 

 Slide-Rock — Timber Wrecked by Avalanche— Slides and Wild 

 Animals — How Slides Originate — Twelve Slides in One Mile 

 — Slide-Rock — How Mountain Peaks Change to Steep Slopes — An 

 Object Lesson in False Notch. 



Out in British Columbia they caU them " snow- 

 slides," or merely " slides," because there are so many 

 of them it takes too much time to say " avalanche." But, 

 call it what you may, the snow-slide is the logical se- 

 quence of steep mountains and abundant snow. 



Take your own house-roof in winter, pile upon it a 

 foot of snow, then send a January thaw with water run- 

 ning on the shingles. The thundering rush, the shiver, 

 and the ultimate crash which you hear tells the story 

 of a miniature snow-slide. Take one of those micro- 

 scopic slides, magnify it ten million diameters, send it 

 half a mile down a very steep incline, with the speed 

 and power of an express train, and you will have an 

 ordinary snow-slide, such as occur by the thousand 

 every spring in the house-roof mountains of British 

 Columbia. 



From man's view-point a snow-slide is awe-inspiring, 

 and in its open season, profoundly dangerous. As viewed 



by Nature, it is one of her ordinary processes, very quick 



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