Path Finding in the Kootenay Country, &c. 299 



Avalanches are very frequent in spring, and even in early summer ; 

 in fact, I know no mountain system where the eye meets on every 

 side with more numerous evidence of these phenomena ; and there 

 is decidedly no mining country in the world where so many human 

 lives have been lost by avalanches. 



The path of the snow slide that swept the forest from the face 



A " MOGUL" LOCOMOTIVE, USED BY THE C. P. RAILWAY TO CROSS THE 

 SELKIRK MOUNTAINS, KOOTENAY, B.C. 



of the mountain to pile it up in vast masses of dtbris beyond the 

 foot of the slide, becomes a year later the scene of a new and 

 rank vegetation, and the third or fourth year already these 

 brushy areas, covering hundreds and thousands of acres, become so 

 dense that progress through them is almost hopeless. More erratic 

 and more widespread is the course of the forest fires. These fires, 



