124 A MAtfUAL OF THE CONIFER.*. 



overland Arctic Expedition. With these travellers he returned to England, 

 bringing with him the results of his researches. He remained in 

 London two years, and sailed again for the Columbia Eiver in 1829. 

 In addition to his mission as a collector for the Horticultural Society, 

 he was employed by the Colonial Office to take observations on 

 magnetic and atmospheric phenomena, the department supplying him 

 with instruments and contributing towards his expenses. He reached 

 the Columbia Eiver in June, 1830, and spent the remainder of the 

 year hi exploring the neighbouring country, and made some valuable 

 additions to the Pinetum, the most important being Abies nobilis and 

 A. Menzicsii. The next year he travelled southwards into California, 

 then a comparatively unknown land, where he found a rich harvest 

 of new plants. In 1832 he visited the Sandwich Islands, and returning 

 to the Columbia Eiver in the same year, undertook an expedition to 

 the Eraser Eiver, where he had a very narrow escape of his life, 

 and lost many valuable papers. He finally quitted north-western 

 America in 1833, having previously resigned his appointment as collector 

 to the Horticultural Society, in consequence of a revolution in the 

 affairs of the Society, which led to the resignation of Mr. Sabine, 

 the Secretary, with whom Douglas identified his interests. He sailed 

 for the Sandwich Islands, where he had remained some months, 

 when an accident put an end to his existence. The natives of the 

 Sandwich Islands were in the habit of making pits in which they 

 caught wild cattle. In one of his excursions, Douglas fell accidentally 

 into one of these pits, in which an infuriated animal was already 

 trapped ; the animal fell upon him, and he was found, dreadfully 

 mangled, and quite dead, July 12th, 1834.* 



Abies Fortunei. — A remarkable species presenting many charac- 

 ters, or rather a combination of characters, that render it unique 

 among Firs. It is a large tree with horizontal branches, which in 

 maturity and age are rigid, and give it the aspect of a Cedar, 

 but in young trees the branches are less formal and the branchlets 

 sub-pendulous, so that the habit is then more like that of an 

 Himalayan Spruce clothed with the foliage of a Silver Fir. The 

 leaves, which are not very closely approximate, are either scattered 

 or spirally arranged round the branchlets, somewhat sabre shaped, 

 about an inch in length, sharply pointed, marked with a single 

 middle vein and bright green above, paler beneath, with two shallow 

 furrows as in the Silver Firs, but not glaucous. The cones are 

 erect as in the Silver Firs, sub-cylindrical, or slightly tapering from 

 the base to the apex, fully 6 inches long, and composed of broad 

 * Chiefly from Loudon's Art. et Frut., vol. i, p. 123, 



