CALIFORNIA TO QUEBEC 183 



curious alpine form of columbine (Aquilegia brevistyla) , while 

 minute saxifrages, potentillas, trifoliums, and many dwarf 

 composites, starred the grassy slopes with beauty. In the 

 afternoon we crossed over a low pass and descended through 

 a precipitous forest into Grizzly Gulch, and then up to Mr. 

 West's house and laboratory, where he did a good deal of work 

 as an assayer of minerals for the numerous prospectors in the 

 district. In the boggy parts of the wood we found great 

 masses of the fine purple Primula parryi. 



We spent Sunday with Mr. West and his son, who were 

 working a mine here in partnership with several other men, 

 and these invited us to dine with them. After a morning 

 among the flowers on the way up, we reached the mine 

 tunnelled into the face of the mountain. After going in a 

 few feet the whole surface of the tunnel becomes a mass of 

 ice-crystals as white as snow, showing that the mean tempera- 

 ture of the earth at a few feet deep is below the freezing- 

 point. This continues for a distance of about five hundred 

 feet, when the increase of temperature with depth becomes 

 just sufficient to prevent freezing, and with every twenty or 

 thirty yards further an increase of warmth is felt. We dined 

 with about a dozen men in a large, rough cabin with sleeping- 

 bunks all round. Our table and benches were of rough 

 planks, but they were covered with a clean table-cloth, and 

 our hosts gave us a most excellent dinner of soup, stew, fruit, 

 and cheese, with very good coffee. In these camps they always 

 get a good cook. 



In the afternoon we walked up the main gulch into a high, 

 upland valley, with Gray's Peak on our left. Here I found 

 Bryanthus empetriformis, a pretty, dwarf, heath-like plant 

 new to the flora of Colorado. The grassy slopes here were 

 wonderfully flowery, with the beautiful Aquilegia ccerulea and 

 the scarlet Castillejas, and higher up was a little moraine lake 

 where Primula parryi and Arnica cordifolia were abundant. 

 Some account of the relations of the American and European 

 alpine plants is given in my chapter on " Flowers and Forests 

 of the Far West," in my " Studies " (vol. i., p. 217). 



The next morning, after gathering a few more choice 



