26 TRANSACTIONS. 1906-7. 



great expense, and none but the very richest ore has been touched. 

 Hedley is about half way between Princeton and Keremeos. At 

 the latter place, in early times a Hudson's Bay Company's post, an 

 abundant supply of water has made irrigation of the dry flats 

 possible, and all kinds of fruit and vegetables produce wonderful 

 crops. Besides apples, cherries, plums and peaches, almonds are 

 successfully cultivated. Before the water is turned on, the dry 

 flats of the Similkameen valley are covered with sage-brush and 

 cactus, and the soil is so hard that a loaded wagon driven over it 

 makes no impression. When irrigated, anything can be grown, 

 and three, or even four, crops of alfalfa are sometimes cut in one 

 season. When I was there last year several thousand acres were 

 being sub-divided into 10-acre plots which were being sold at 

 $200 per acre. This seems a high price to pay for an acre of hard 

 gravel and clay, but even higher prices are paid in the Okanagan 

 district for similar land, and immense profits are being made there 

 by those who have bearing orchards, their fruit being shipped to 

 the northwest. The first railway to reach .Keremeos will be one 

 that will carry early fruit and vegetables to the mines of east 

 and west Kootenay, where there is a constant demand at good 

 prices. 



A short day's journey to the east, Osoyoos Lake is reached. 

 If the valley of the Similkameen is dry the region about Osoyoos 

 Lake may be called a desert, at least it is the nearest approach 

 to a desert we have in Canada. The heat during the summer 

 is terrific and the soil, especially on the east side of the lake, is so 

 sandy that it is almost without herbaceous vegetation. It is 

 covered with clumps of Artemisia or ■ sage-brush, Bigelovia — a 

 yellow flowered composite shrub, and Purshia, the latter a shrub 

 of the rose family with sweet-scented yellow flowers, in appear- 

 ance and perfume much like the flowering currant. As might 

 be expected, both the flora and fauna are characteristic of an 

 arid region. An enumeration of the plants would not convey 

 any idea of their appearance or peculiarities. Many of them 

 have magnificent flowers, the finest of all being perhaps Mal- 

 vastrum Munroanum of the mallow family. Its flowers are 

 brick-red, quite unlike any other Canadian species except one 

 of the same genus found on the dry prairies of the northwest. All 

 the small mammals are peculiar to the region and several species 

 of birds are found nowhere else in Canada. Around Osoyoos lake 

 and between that lake and the Similkameen there are probably 



