1827, MAY. HEAD SPRING OP THE COLUMBIA 259 



snowshoes to that on the left hand or west side, being to all appearance the 

 highest. The labour of ascending the lower part, which is covered with 

 pines, is great beyond description, sinking on many occasions to the 

 middle. Half-way up vegetation ceases entirely, not so much as a vestige 

 of moss or lichen on the stones. Here I found it less laborious as I walked 

 on the hard crust. One-third from the summit it becomes a mountain of 

 pure ice, sealed far over by Nature's hand as a momentous work of Nature's 

 God. The height from its base may be about 5500 feet : timber, 2750 

 feet ; a few mosses and lichen, 500 more ; 1000 feet of perpetual snow ; 

 the remainder, towards the top 1250, as I have said, glacier with a thin 

 covering of snow on it. The ascent took me five hours ; descending only 

 one and a quarter. Places where the descent was gradual, I tied my shoes 

 together, making them carry me in turn as a sledge. Sometimes I 

 came down at one spell 500 to 700 feet in the space of one minute 

 and a half. I remained twenty minutes, my thermometer standing at 

 18° ; night closing fast in on me, and no means of fire, I was reluctantly 

 forced to descend. The sensation I felt is beyond what I can give utterance 

 to. Nothing, as far as the eye could perceive, but mountains such as I 

 was on, and many higher, some rugged beyond any description, striking 

 the mind with horror blended with a sense of the wondrous works of the 

 Almighty. The aerial tints of the snow, the heavenly azure of the solid 

 glaciers, the rainbow-hke hues of their thin broken fragments, the huge 

 mossy icicles hanging from the perpendicular rocks with the snow sliding 

 from the steep southern rocks with amazing velocity, producing a crash 

 and grumbling hke the shock of an earthquake, the echo of which 

 resounding in the valley for several minutes. On the rocks of the wood 

 were Menziesia caerulea i ; Andromeda hypnoides ^ ; Lycopodium alpinum ; 

 L. sp. unknown to me ; dead stems of Gentiana nivalis ; Epildbium sp., 

 small ; Salix herbacea ; Empetrum nigrum, fruit in a good state of preser- 

 vation underneath the snow ; Juncus triglumis ; /. biglumis, with a few 

 Musci, Jungermanniae and lichens. 



Wednesday, 2nd.—M.j ankles and knees pained me so much from 

 exertion that my sleep was short and interrupted. Rose at 3 a.m. and had 

 fire kindled ; thermometer 20°. Started at a quarter-past four through 

 a gradually rising point of wood which terminated three hundred yards 

 below the highest part of the pass in the valley. An hour's walking took us 

 to one of the head springs of the Columbia, a small lake or basin twenty 

 yards in diameter, circular, which divides its waters, half flowing to the 

 Pacific and half to the hyperborean sea — namely, the headwaters of the 

 Athabasca River. A small lake, about 47° of N. latitude, divides its waters 

 between the Columbia and one of the branches of the Missamac, which is 

 singular. This being a half-way house, or stage, I williagly quickened my 

 pace, now descending on the east side. This little river in the course of a 

 few miles assumes a considerable size and is very varied. There are two 

 passes, one four miles from its source and one seven, when it finds its way 

 over cascades, confined falls, and cauldrons of fine white and blue lime- 



1 Bryanthus taxifolius, A. Gray, Syn. H. N. Am. ii. i. p. 37. 

 ^ Oassiope hypnoides, A. Gray, loc. cit., p. 36. 



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