Climate of the Canadian West. IRE 
is more or less. The comparatively less rainfall of the 
coast of the south-western section of the mainland, (New 
Westminster district) than farther north, is owing to the 
abstraction of part of the moisture of the rain-bearing winds 
by their striking the mountains on Vancouver Island (where 
it is very wet), and to the lowness of the land about the 
mouth of the Fraser river. 
This dampness produces that extraordinary growth of 
gigantic forests and vegetation characteristic of the Pacific 
slope; but this vegetation is distinctly northern in type, 
and the climate is far removed from a tropical one, where 
summer is eternal and proportionately enervating to man 
and beast. It is,on the contrary, though drier and steadier 
than England, in ordinary seasons not unlike the western 
counties, more particularly Devon and Cornwall. 
. Passing over the uninhabited ranges popularly known as 
the Cascades, whose summits reach eternal frost, and whose 
gorges are wet and densely wooded, we emerge on this side 
into a wholly different region. Instead of the lowlands of 
the Fraser delta, and the forests of almost tropical luxuriance 
that choke the narrow mountuin-valleys, whose slopes are 
running With copious streams fed by an almost incessant 
rainfall, we have here, in the interior of British Columbia, 
wide areas of grassy plateus and rounded hilltops. The 
rainfall of this southern interior is, in fact, slight and intermit- 
tent, and is insufficient for agriculture, so that farming must 
rely upon irrigation, For grazing, however, this condition of 
things is most favorable, and stockraising is likely to be the 
principal industry asfar north as the rough, wooded country, 
which begins some 50 miles north of the railway. Yet the sky 
is often heavily clouded; but these clouds sweep overhead 
from west to east without shedding a drop of rain, though it 
may fall for days at a time on the mountains each side. 
The explanation, undoubtedly is: that the hot air, ascend- 
ing from the heated and trecless plateau continually buoys 
up the clouds, and at the same time keeps them warmed 
above the point of condensation, Once in a while there is 
an interruption of this equilibrium in the shape of what is 
