290 CAMP-FIRES IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES 



As we toiled over the great fields of foot-breaking 

 gray limestone, hard as flint, pointed to pierce, edged 

 to cut and immaculately clean, we could think only of 

 snow-slides as the agencies which had conveyed them so 

 far down from the summits. The principle of slide-rock 

 is clear enough; but even with one's imagination working 

 over time, it is not easy to figure out the transportation 

 of such enormous quantities of it. Naturally, the place 

 for slide-rock is near the foot of the cliff from which it 

 fell, and not three thousand feet away, in a mass equal to 

 that of the pyramids of Gizeh, and half a mile wide. 



Take, for example, the spot whereon we killed our 

 first goats. Originally, the ridge on which we stood when 

 we fired was topped by a cliff. The cliff turned to slide- 

 rock and fell away until there remained a ridge so low 

 that no more slide-rock was given off. Then soil and 

 timber began to cover the ridge, and there being no 

 proper conditions for avalanches, the slide-rock remains 

 to-day as it fell so long ago. Gradually it is being cov- 

 ered with soil and brush, and young spruces; and finally 

 " green timber " will grow upon it, and cover it with an 

 evergreen mantle. 



On the summit of the mountain roof which Charlie 

 Smith and I climbed in False Notch, the manner in which 

 Nature pares down mountain peaks by the manufacture 

 of slide-rock, was plainly written out. At the very spot 

 where we climbed, there once had been a rocky cliff, 

 joining the two peaks which still exist. Originally the 

 two peaks must have been merely parts of one grand 

 precipice, as high as their summits are to-day. 



