REPORT OF THE CHIEF ASTRONOMER 23 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 25a 



(c) Extend on both sides of Kootenay lake, but entirely in Canada; 



(d) Do not extend south of the northern extremity of Kootenay lake; 



(e) Contrary to all of the above-mentioned usages, extend across the 



Columbia river north-westward to Quesnel lake in 53° N. lat. 

 (Brownlee's Map, 1893). 



4. Purcell range, according to different authorities — 



(a) A local rangelet in the West Kootenay district, British Columbia; 



(b) Includes all the mountains between Kootenay lake and the Kocky 



Mountains proper, entirely in Canada; 



(c) Includes the same mountains as under (b), but extends into the 



United States as far as the great loop of the Kootenay river. 



5. Bitterroot mountains (also spelled ' Bitter Boot ') used — 



(a) In the larger sense of most maps; or 



(b) In a much narrower sense, a small range overlooking the Bitterroot 



river (Lindgren). 



6. Rocky Mountains or Rocky Mountain system, also called the Front range, 

 and Laramide range; often alternative for 'Cordillera.' 



7. Gold range of British Columbia, a name applied to a local range crossed 

 by the main line of the Canadian Facific railway, and west of the Columbia 

 river; also applied to a much greater group, including the Selkirk, Purcell, 

 Columbia, Cariboo, and Omineca ranges (Gold ranges, an alternative form of 

 the title in this latter meaning). 



The confusion of the nomenclature is aggravated in the case of certain 

 atlases, which in different map-sheets give different titles to the same range. 

 Thus, on one map of the new Rand-McNally ' Indexed Atlas of the World/ 

 the western mainland member of the Cordillera in British Columbia is 

 correctly named the Coast range and, on another sheet, incorrectly named the 

 Cascade range. The same indefensible carelessness even appears in certain 

 Canadian school atlases. In the Rand-McNally map of British Columbia, 

 the Selkirks are represented as ending on the south at the head of Kootenay 

 lake, and are continued to the eastward of that lake by the 'Dog Tooth Moun- 

 tains/ the latter name being little familiar to the people of British Columbia. 

 In the general map of the United States published in the same Atlas, the 

 Selkirks are represented as quite defined to the westward of Kootenay lake. 

 The area thus inconsistently mapped has a width equal to the average width 

 of the Alps. 



ADOPTED PRINCIPLE OF NOMENCLATURE FOR THE BOUNDARY MOUNTAINS. 



On the line of the Forty-ninth Parallel, the Cordillera has already assumed 

 what may be called its British Columbia habit as contrasted with its Fortieth Paral- 

 lel habit. The division of the whole into orographic units is relatively simple 

 in Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California, where the building and erosion 

 of the Cordillera have resulted in a comparatively clear-cut separation of the 



