EEMAEKS ON THE REINDEER AND HIPPOPOTAMUS. 159 



in the ancient Diluvial Drift. Thus collocated, the lapse of a few centuries, all record of the event being 

 supposed to be absent, would suffice to render the facts enigmatical to the shrewdest observer of a future 

 day, unguided by the consideration of those analogies which only could aid in solving the apparent mystery. 

 Yet it needs but a small effort of the imagination to suppose the possibility nay, even the probability of 

 an occurrence such as I have indicated. The effects of an earthquake, even less formidable than that which 

 but recently devastated a portion of South America, might suffice to close temporarily the very narrow 

 portal in the volcanic barrier, by which the drainage of the ancient lake-bed has been effected, and through 

 which the still partially impeded river now rushes. 



Indeed, that the probability of a stoppage such as I have supposed is not entirely visionary, we have 

 evidence, of a comparatively recent date, at a point about 150 miles lower down the river. At this point, 

 where the Columbia breaks through the Cascade range, to flow afterwards tranquilly to the ocean, a 

 stupendous mountain-slide, the effect of some great convulsion, has taken place, the date of which, as well 

 from the accounts formerly given to me by the elders of the Indian residents as from evidences that appear, 

 could not certainly have been more remote than towards the end of the last century. The river, in this 

 part flowing between lofty ridges, temporarily dammed, rose far above its wonted boundaries for many miles 

 up, in such wise that the inhabitants of the hanks escaped only by means of their canoes. Gradually the 

 pent-up stream forced its way through the impeding mass ; but huge fragments of rock still obstruct the 

 contracted channel, occasioning the unnavigable rapid now known as the " Cascades." Owing to this partial 

 obstruction, the waters of the upper vicinity, with a retarded current, have since flowed permanently at a 

 height some 15 or 20 feet above their former level, submerging the lower banks with their forest-growth, 

 of which at various points the slowly decaying stumps, chiefly of the Abies Douglasii, were conspicuous 

 some years ago and doubtless still remain*. 



But there is perhaps no part of the world where the grand natural changes, constantly operating through 

 very simple causes, are better exemplified than in some parts of the Upper Fraser, in British Columbia. 

 Flowing for a long distance through deep wooded banks of diluvial origin, beneath which, in places, there is 

 exposed a thin stratum of lignite, the river bursts, about twenty miles below Alexandriaf, through a chasm 

 in a lofty volcanic barrier. Above this are evidences of an ancient lake-bed, drained suddenly at successive 

 intervals, as indicated by the corresponding terraces along the banks, much (though, from the hilly nature 

 of the country, on a comparatively inexpansive scale) as the similar process indicated at Walla- Walla under 

 the description I have given. Along the banks, for more than 100 miles above this point, land-slides of 

 greater or less magnitude are constantly occurring. The fall of one of these I had the good fortune (if to 

 have narrowly escaped destruction with the whole of my command may so be termed) to witness, when in 

 charge of Fort Alexandria in 1845. Another, upon a still grander scale, some seventy miles higher up, 

 I had examined shortly after it fell, some time before. In this last case, with a vertical depth approaching 

 500 feet at the line of rupture, and an area of perhaps a thousand acres or more, the surface exhibited a 

 complete bouleversement,\ibe an ill-ploughed field gigantically magnified. Under similar processes the river, 



* The truncated stems of these huge trees are doubtless greatly preserved from decay by the drying effect 

 of the fierce gales of wind that almost incessantly prevail in this locality. At the same time the lower 

 portions, which are more or less silted over, are probably to some extent petrified. This I infer from the 

 numerous petrified fragments that appear along the banks, especially in the immediate neighbourhood of 

 the Cascades. 



t Alexandria is in lat. 52 33', about midway between the mouth of Fraser River and its source in the 

 Rocky Mountains. 



z2 



