28 GEOGRAPHY OF OKEGON. 



bases of the mountains are covered with wood ; but the temperature in 

 most places is too cold for the production of any of the useful grains or 

 garden vegetables. The parts of this region which appear to be the most 

 favorable for agriculture, are those adjacent to the Clarke River, and 

 particularly around the Kullerspelm, or Flathead Lake, where the hills 

 are well clothed with oaks, elms, cedars, and pines, and the soil of the 

 low grounds is of good quality. 



New Caledonia is the name given by the British traders to the country 

 extending north and west of the Columbia regions, to the 56th parallel of 

 latitude. It is a sterile land of snow-clad mountains, tortuous rivers, and 

 lakes frozen over nearly two thirds of the year ; presenting scarcely a 

 single spot in which any of the vegetables used as food by civilized people 

 can be produced. The waters, like those of the country farther south, 

 however, abound in fish, which, with berries, form the principal support 

 of the native population. The largest lakes are the Babine, communi- 

 cating with the ocean by Simpson's River, and Stuart's, Quesnel's, and 

 Fraser's Lakes, the outlet of all which is Fraser's River, a long but shal- 

 low stream, emptying into the Strait of Fuca at its eastern extremity. 

 The coast of this country is very irregular in outline, being penetrated by 

 many bays and inlets, running up from the sea among the mountains 

 which border that side of the continent; between it and the open Pa- 

 cific lie the islands of the North-West Archipelago, which will be here 

 described. 



The North-West Archipelago is a remarkable collection of islands, 

 situated in, and nearly filling a recess of the American coast, about seven 

 hundred miles in length, and eighty or one hundred in breadth, which ex- 

 tends between' the 48th and the 58th parallels of latitude; that is to say, 

 between the same parallels as Great Britain. These islands are in number 

 many thousands, presenting together a surface of not less than fifty thou- 

 sand square miles; they are, however, with the exception of nine or ten, 

 very small, and the greater part of them are mere rocks. The largest 

 islands are all traversed, in their longest direction, from south-east to north- 

 west, by mountain ridges; and the whole archipelago may be considered 

 as a range connecting the Far-West mountains of Oregon with the great 

 chain farther north, of which Mounts Fairweather and St. Elias are the 

 most prominent peaks. 



The coasts of these islands are, like those of the continent in their 

 vicinity, very irregular in outline, including numerous bays and inlets ; 

 and the channels between them are, with one exception, narrow and 

 tortuous. These coasts and channels were minutely surveyed, during the 

 period from 1785 to 1795, by navigators of various nations, chiefly with 

 the view of discovering some northern passage of communication between 

 the Pacific and the Atlantic ; and the true geographical character of the 

 islands, which had previously been regarded as parts of the continent, 

 was thus ascertained. The British, under Vancouver, made the most 

 complete examination of the archipelago, and bestowed on the islands, 

 channels, capes, and bays, a number of names, nearly all drawn from the 

 lists of the British royal family, peerage, and parliament, some of which 

 still retain their places on maps, though few of them will probably be used 

 when those parts of America are occupied by a civilized population. 



Of the interior of the islands little is known ; but from all accounts, 

 they are generally rocky and barren. The climate of the southernmost 



