130 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
than 16,000 or 17,000 feet above the level of the sea. After 
passing over the lower ridge, I came to about 1,200 feet of by 
far the most difficult and fatiguing walking I ever experienced, 
and the utmost care was required to tread safely over the crust 
of snow. A few mosses and lichens, Andree and Jungermannie, are 
observable, but at the elevation of 4,800 feet vegetation no longer 
exists; not so much as a lichen is found in a tract of 1,200 feet of 
eternal ice. The view from the summit is of too awful a cast to afford 
pleasure. Nothing can be seen, in every direction, far as the eye can 
reach, except mountains, towering above each other, rugged beyond 
all description; while the dazzling reflection from the snow, the heavenly 
azure of the solid glaciers, with the rainbow tints of their shattered frag- 
ments, and the enormous icicles suspended from the perpendicular 
rocks, and the majestic but terrible avalanches hurling themselves from 
the more exposed southerly rocks, produced a crash and groaned 
through the distant valleys with a sound only equalled by that of an 
earthquake. Such scenes give a sense of the stupendous and wonderful 
works of the Almighty. This peak, the highest yet known in the North- 
ern Continent of America, I felt a sincere pleasure in naming “ Mount 
Brown,” in honour of R. Brown, Esq., the illustrious Botanist, a man no 
less distinguished by the amiable qualities of his mind than by his 
scientific attamments. A little to the southward is one nearly of the 
same height, rising into a sharper point; this I named “ Mount Hooker,” 
in honour of my early patron, the Professor of Botany in the University 
of Glasgow. This mountain, however, I was not able to climb. A 
species of Menziesia, Andromeda hypnoides, Gentiana, Lycopodium 
alpinum, Salix herbacea, Empetrum, Juncus biglumis and triglumis were 
among the last of the phcenogamous plants which I observed. 
Wednesday, the 2nd. At three o’clock I felt the cold so much, and 
the thermometer only stood at 2° below Zero, that I was obliged to rise 
and enliven the fire, to get myself comfortably warmed before starting. 
Through three hundred yards of gradually rising open low Pine-woods, 
we passed, and about the same distance of open ground took us to the 
basin of this mighty river—a small circular lake, twenty yards in dia- 
meter, in the centre of the valley, with a small outlet on the West end, 
namely, the Wood River branch of the Columbia, and another at the East 
end, namely, one of the branches of the Athabasca, which must itself be 
considered one of the tributaries of the Mackenzie River. This is not the 
only fact of two opposite streams flowing from the same lake. This, “the 
Committee’s Punch Boul.” is considered as being half-way, and we were 
quite glad to know that the more laborious and arduous part of our Journey 
was accomplished. The little stream, the Athabasca, over which we had 
stepped so conveniently, presently assumed a considerable size, and was 
