260 DOUGLAS' JOURNAL 



stone and columns of basalt, like the feeders of the Columbia at the deep 

 passes of the mountain ; where the torrents descend with furious rapidity 

 it spreads out into a broad channel bounded by the mountains. The 

 descent from the east is much greater than from the west, the mountain 

 more abrupt and equally rugged. Found the snow eight miles below the 

 ridge gradually diminish. The heat increases and the quantity of snow 

 on the east not equal to the west. Passed on" the right a very high (per- 

 haps 4000 feet) perpendicular rock with a flat top, and three mUes lower 

 down on the same side two higher ones, rising to peaks about a mUe apart 

 at the base with a high background which appears two-thirds glacier, and 

 in the valley or bosom of the three, columns and pillars of ice running out 

 in all the ramifications of the Corinthian order. From the mouth of the 

 valley of this awesome spectacle a passage is seen more like the crater 

 of a volcano than anything else : stones of several tons weight are carried 

 across the valley by the force of the current during the sunmier months. 

 The change of climate is great and the herbage equally so. No more huge 

 specimens of Thuya nor Pinus taxifolia ^ or P. Strobus, Acer nor Berberis, 

 so abundant only a few miles on the other side. Pinus nigra ^ and 

 P. Banksiana here take the lead, a few bare species of Salix and under the 

 shade Ledum palustre with carpets of Sphagnum. In the dry hUly parts 

 Ledum buxifoliumfi Arbutus Uva-ursiA The only bird seen on the 

 extreme height of land is a small light dun Jay, who, with all the 

 impudence peculiar to most of his kindred, fluttered round our camp 

 last night picking any food thrown to him. Of the structure of the 

 mountains I caimot speak ; it is worthy of notice, however, that all I have 

 yet seen here and west of the Rocky Mountains have a dip of from 30° to 

 45° south-west. I do not recollect a single exception. Blue and mica- 

 ceous granites, limestone trap, and basalt are the most common. Sand or 

 freestone I have not yet seen. Halted at 10 a.m. to breakfast, and the 

 snow being here now, fifteen miles from the ridge, intend to go on in the 

 evening. At 2 p.m. started ; very warm, 57°. Passed through the valley 

 for three nules and then entered a rocky point of wood ; the river confined 

 into a very narrow space and rapid. On the dry gravelly shores Dryas 

 octopetala and another species with narrow entire leaves : perhaps this may 

 be D. integrifolia. Low wood, very wet and difficult to pass over, Aralia 

 sp., a low shrub, 2 feet high. Went ofE my way, being before the others 

 three miles, but as fortune woidd have it, just as the sun was creeping 

 behind the hill, I observed smoke about a mile east of me. Without any 

 loss of time I soon made up to it and found Jacques Cardinal with eight 

 horses, who had come to meet us. An hour after one of the men came up, 

 and shortly afterwards we heard several shots fired, which I knew to be 

 signals for me, which obliged me to send the man on horseback to say 

 I had arrived at the Moose encampment. Old Cardinal roasted, on a 

 stack before the fire, a shoulder of Mouton grii, which I found very fine. 

 He had a pint copper kettle patched in an ingenious maimer, in which he 



1 PsevdoUuga Douglasii, Mast, in Joum. R. Hort. Soc. xiv. p. 245. 



2 Picea nigra. Mast., loc. cit., p. 222. 



3 Leiophyllum buxifolium, A. Gray, Syn. H. N. Am. p. 43. 

 * Arctostaphyloa Uva-ursi, A. Gray, loc, cit., p. 27. 



