THE YUKON. 205 



as well as in other parts of the Rocky Mountain chain, 

 the rivers falling into opposite seas interlock at their origin. 

 In lat. 61° 30' N., long. 130° W., the Lewis is joined 

 by the River Francis, which has no connection with the 

 lake of a similar name, but comes from Russian Lake, a 

 sheet of water lying more to the south. At the junction 

 of the Francis and Lewis, Mr. Roderick Campbell has 

 built a trading post, named " Pelly Banks," which, ac- 

 cording to his experiments with the boiling water ther- 

 mometer, is elevated 1,400 feet above the ocean. The 

 united streams take the name of the Pelly, which falls 

 into the Pacific, probably into Tchilikat or Lynn Canal, 

 but the exact situation of its mouth has not been ascer- 

 tained. Native traders come from the head of Tchilikat 

 to Pelly Banks in a fortnight. 



From the same elevated district in which the Lewis or 

 Pelly and the north-west branch of the River of the 

 Mountains take their source, the Yukon, a river of great 

 magnitude, issues ; and for a considerable part of its course 

 flows to the north, through a country which, as far as I 

 can judge from, the descriptive notices of it which I have 

 collected, closely resembles the valley of the Mackenzie. 

 Mr. Murray was disposed at one time to identify this 

 river with the Colville, which falls into the Arctic Sea 

 about 120 miles to the east of Point Barrow; but more 

 recent and full native information leads him now to con- 

 clude that it flows towards Norton Sound ; and one of the 

 officers of the Enterprise, in a private letter which has 

 been published, states that the Russians have established 

 its identity with the Kwichpack, which falls into Beering's 

 Sea between Cape Stephens and Cape RomanzofF. * 



* The following is an extract of a letter to rue from Mr. Murray, 

 dated May 1850, on the Yukon : — " My account of the course of this 

 river, also a sort of chart I made of it from the description given by 



