264 APPOINTED ASSISTANT DIRECTOR 



daughter and myself to take "pot luck" on his private car and so 

 we were in luck, while the people were being starved at the hotel. 

 While this was going on, a bigger slide than ever took place down 

 near Revelstoke and blocked the snow in some places sixty feet 

 deep on the track. Mr. Marpole hurried down to open up 

 connections there and we remained with the chief engineer. Late 

 in the evening, Mr. Marpole telephoned up for the chief engineer 

 to come down to where the slide was and that possibly we could 

 be put through and sent down to Revelstoke. When we reached 

 there, we found that another slide had taken place and Mr. Mar- 

 pole was blocked from coming to our aid where we were. By 

 superhuman effort, an opening was made and we were passed over 

 the slide in steps cut in the snow; then, on the top of flat cars, 

 through a tunnel and another half mile or so over a rough road, 

 we reached the train from Revelstoke and so escaped. I never 

 learned how the rest of our passengers fared, but I was satisfied 

 we had had our share for one trip. When we left the mountains 

 and got fairly into British Columbia and saw growth commencing 

 and pear trees in bloom at Yale, we felt sure we were in the land 

 of milk and honey. 



After placing Mrs. Macoun and my youngest daughter, Nellie, 

 with Mrs. Wheeler, my eldest daughter, I went on to Vancouver 

 Island, where William S. had been collecting from the early 

 spring. He had made large collections of birds and mam- 

 mals when I reached Victoria and, as soon as convenient, we 

 moved from there to Comox as I desired to try and ascend the 

 mountains west of Comox Lake, but we found that, owing to the 

 heavy snow-fall, the winter before, the snow was still in the forest 

 too near sea level to give us returns for our trouble. We, there- 

 fore, turned our attention to the sea and made large collections 

 by dredging and travelling over the tide flats up in the direction 

 of Cape Lazo. After we did what we could at Comox, we returned 

 to Victoria and then went down to Sooke and stayed a couple of 

 weeks there and made large collections in Sooke Bay by dredging 

 for shells and other material. I closed up my work and invited 

 Mrs. Wheeler to come over and I arranged for us all to live at 

 "Cherrybank" with Mrs. Brown. We boarded there for a month 



