﻿4«2 



BOTANICAL GAZETTE 



will probably be necessary; and although the Selkirks and the 

 Gold Range bear the reputation of being rain-soaked mountains, I 

 suspect that sufficient information would place them in the summer- 

 dry category. 



My own data have been obtained in various places, and while on 

 the march. Such items should be numerous and in long series in 

 order to have much value, for showers are often of local occurrence 

 and are more frequent in some localities than in others. A vivid 

 impression of local differences is often conveyed from an outlook 

 point where a wide expanse of peaks is visible. Over most of the 

 landscape there may be sunshine, while Rogers Pass and the great 

 peak in the north, variously called Cloud Summit, Sir Sanford, 3 

 and the Chieftain, are enveloped in dark rain clouds. 



A rough summary of the weather in the growing season for a 

 number of summers is given in table I. 



The reputation which the Selkirks bear is probably due partly 

 to the luxuriance of the vegetation, all the more striking to those 

 who come from the thinly forested Rockies, and partly to the fact 

 that very rainy summers have occurred. The accounts of the 

 explorers who found the route for the railroad in the early eighties 

 are tales of great hardship, in which tangled brush and incessant 

 rain are prominent features. Witness also the memorable summer 

 of 1907. So far as data are available, however, it would appear that 

 summer precipitation is scanty, on the whole, and that the climate 

 of the Selkirks resembles that of Puget Sound. 



Whatever may be the fact in regard to rainfall, there is another 

 form of precipitation, the regularity and abundance of which is not 

 open to question. Light snows come and go about timber line 

 occasionally during July and August, and more frequently during 

 September and early October, until, by the first of November, the 

 snow mantle is spreading rapidly downward into the forest. From 

 November until the following spring, the whole surface of the 

 earth is deeply covered. At Glacier, altitude 1260 m. as recorded 

 by instrument, 75-150 cm. of snow falls annually. In the sub- 

 alpine zone the packed snow becomes 2-3 m. deep, not to dis- 

 appear until June; that at lower altitudes is somewhat less, the 



3 This name has since been adopted. 



