Notes on some Small Rodents found in North America. 419 



There is a wild and massive grandeur about the eastern 

 side of the Cascades, unlike the scenery on the west, or coast 

 slope, which is densely wooded. Here it was like riding 

 through a succession of parks, covered with waving grass and 

 countless flowers of varied species. Shutting in the valleys, 

 like Titan walls, rose vast piles of plutonic, metamorphic, and 

 trappean rocks, records of the eruptive elevatory forces that 

 had tilted up Mounts Baker and Rainer into the regions of 

 ice and everlasting snow. 



I reached the junction of the two streams, and camped 

 just as the sun was disappearing behind the western hills. 

 The lingering rays of the purple twilight seemed loth to 

 leave, and clung faintly to the ragged peaks of the rocks, that 

 shut me in on every side ; not a sound of bird or beast awoke 

 the solemn silence of the forest, and, save the babble of the 

 stream, as it rippled over the shingle, all nature seemed 

 hushed in deathlike sleep. I could dimly make out in the 

 fading light the grim hill I had to climb at dawn, it towered 

 up, like a mighty giant, high above all its brethren, the clear 

 white snow covering its summit sharply defined, and contrast- 

 ing strangely with the black sombre pine trees, standing like 

 sentinels guarding the lower portion of the mountains. 



By the time I had started my fire it was pitch dark ; 

 nothing disturbed my night's repose, save the howling of a 

 pack of skulking wolves, that I had to scatter with a fire 

 stick. 



The " world's great eye," as it came peeping over the 

 hills, roused me from my sound sleep, and warned me it was time 

 to be up and stirring. I had a stiff climb before me, and my 

 hopes were high in expectation of bowling over some big-horn 

 (Ovis montana) and ptarmagan. For some distance I scram- 

 bled up the side of the brawling mountain torrent, whose 

 course, like true love, was none of the smoothest, being over 

 and among vast fragments of rock that everywhere covered 

 the hillside. Struggling out from ^ these relics of destruction 

 grew the great Douglas pine (Abies Douglasii) , the graceful 

 Menzies pine, and ponderous cedar (Thuja gigantea) ; here the 

 ascent was easy enough, but, as I reached a greater altitude, 

 the climbing was anything but a joke. 



The Pinus contorta and Pinus flexilis were now the only 

 trees, and a few Alpine flowers peeped out here and there 

 from among the granite debris. I reached a level plateau 

 near the summit, much fagged, and lay down on the soft 

 mossy grass near a stream, that came trickling down from the 

 melting snow. 



In every direction, as far as eye could scan, there were 

 nothing but hills of all shapes and heights, whilst far below, 



VOL. VI. — NO. VI. E E 



