PRAIRIE DISTRICT. 279 



has described fifteen species belonging to the genera Mam- 

 miliaria, Echinocactus, Opantia, and Cerens. Among these, 

 the Pitahaya, or Cereus giganteus, is the most remarkable, 

 as it grows in the shape of a candelabra, or Titanic tuning- 

 fork, with three or four prongs, to the height of sixty feet. 

 Cacti are numerous also on the eastern side of the moun- 

 tains in the same parallel ; and the smaller kinds, chiefly 

 Opuntice, range northwards over the prairies to the 49th 

 parallel, and perhaps still further north. We gathered 

 Opuntia glomerata, or the crapaud verd of the voyagers, on 

 the Lake of the Woods ; and a species of the same section 

 of the genus attains an equally high parallel on the Pacific 

 coast. 



With the physiognomy of the vegetation on the Rocky 

 Mountains, and of the district to the west of that range, 

 I have no personal acquaintance, and borrow the following 

 notice of the vegetation of Sitka from Bongard. Sitka is 

 situated in the entrance of Norfolk Sound, on the 57th 

 parallel, near an extinct volcano, named Mount Edge- 

 cumbe, which marks the entrance of the sound. The most 

 remarkable mountain in the immediate vicinity of the 

 settlement is Westerwoi, which is 3,000 Parisian feet in 

 height, and is clothed to its summit by a dense forest of 

 pines and spruces, some of which acquire a diameter of 

 seven feet, and the prodigious length of 160 feet. The 

 hollow trunk of one of these trees formed into a canoe, is 

 able to contain thirty men, with all their household effects. 

 The climate of Sitka is very much milder than that of 

 Europe on the same parallel. The cold of winter is neither 

 severe nor of long continuance; but the atmosphere is 

 charged with vapours, whose condensation occasion almost 

 constant rains. In the month of July the sun is seldom 

 visible on more than three or four days, and then only for 



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