1891. } NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 61 
abruptly turns northward, and will run parallel to the river to a 
point about eight miles from Bonner’s Ferry. 
At present this most interesting Kootenai region is best 
reached by the Northern Pacific line to Kootenai Station, about 
thirty miles east of Spokane Falls, whence a stage ride of thirty- 
three miles brings one to Bonner’s Ferry. 
The natural commercial outlet of Kootenai Lake is south. 
ward into the United States, and the Northern Pacific has al- 
ready made several surveys from their line to Bonner’s Ferry, 
which is at present the head of navigation on the Kootenai 
River; but it is hardly likely that this line will be built, since 
the Great Northern will be running to within eight miles of 
this point next year. 
The Kootenai River is navigable for one hundred and twenty 
miles above the lake to Bonner’s Ferry, and is singularly free 
from shoals, bars, or similar impediments. It is a sluggish, 
very winding stream, from two hundred to five hundred feet in 
width, flowing through rich bottoms which grow hay, grain, and 
potatoes in the greatest luxuriance, but which are liable to over- 
flow when the river is swollen by the melting snows of the 
spring. 
Kootenai Lake is ninety miles long and of unknown depth; 
soundings are said to have been made at points to a depth of 
fifteen hundred feet without finding bottom. This is qaite 
likely from its situation, as it lies between two of the ranges of 
the Selkirks, which are quite precipitous at these points and 
slope directly into the water. Indeed, it is not, possible at high 
water to walk for any considerable distance along the shore, as 
the rocks come perpendicularly into the water at many points, 
Kootenai Lake never freezes, but navigation on the river is 
interrupted for about three months in the winter by ice; al- 
though it is said that a strong boat could readily keep the 
stream open during the whole season, at least as far south as the 
boundary. 
The mountains of the Selkirk range consist of a hard gray 
granite, their peaks rising from five thousand to nine thousand 
feet above the sea. The mountains in the immediate vicinity 
of the lake are not higher than six thousand feet, but beyond 
and to the north, on a clear day, a wilderness of summits 
rising one above another is visible, snow-capped and_glacier- 
covered. ‘The Canadian Geological Survey have published a 
special bulletin on the geology of this region, based on a visit in 
1889, and the data then obtained have convinced Dr. Dawson 
that the lake occupies a depression largely formed by the wear- 
ing away of the more recent stratified rocks, which are still 
