Miscellaneous, 



165 



but, I think, distinct ; and once I picked the cones of Abies grandis, and 

 one verj like Finns contorfa, Dougl. I " blazed" the tree, and will 

 return in the autumn to it, if I do not find it elsewhere. Just as the sun 

 was setting, we came to the termination of the lake, which I had named 

 *' Sproat's Lake," after the resident partner in the firm of Messrs Ander- 

 son and Co., my friend and countryman Gilbert Malcolm Sproat. It 

 is about 23 miles in length in its longest axis. Here we found a river 

 flowing in. We ascended this in our canoe for a mile, when the navi- 

 gation becoming difficult we camped, and enjoyed a sound sleep by a 

 blazing fire, notwithstanding the mosquito and various other pests, of 

 which, to those who have camped " sub Jove frigido" in North- West 

 America, there requires no explanation. Next morning, after discussing 

 our pork and biscuit, we took to the woods, ascending the banks of the 

 river through a fine open valley, comparatively thinly covered with fine 

 timber, and free of undergrowth — a great rarity for Vancouver's woods. 

 If the wood was clear of undergrowth, we found a pest which incommoded 

 us considerably — Panax horridum, well deserving its name, with its long 

 waving stem, crowned with a pecten-like head of leaves, and a raceme of 

 white flowers. In many places the ground was covered with snow 

 a foot and a-half deep, through which some bulbous plants were pro- 

 truding their flowers. In the course of the day I made a very agree- 

 able discovery in the examination of what I thought the Abies Cana- 

 densis of the Atlantic slope ; but which I found represented by a species 

 which may be little known in England. It has only been recently de- 

 scribed by my friend Dr Albert Kellogg, secretary of the Californian 

 Academy, in their Transactions, vol ii. p. 8, under the name of Abies 

 Bridgei, Though I will take care to send you plenty of it later in the 

 season, I subjoin a short description of it : — 



Leaves — Evergreen, solitary, linear cuneiform obtuse, somewhat flat- 

 tened, fleshy slightly, grooved above, ridged beneath, very minutely 

 scabrous, serrate petiolate, somewhat two-ranked. Cones — Numerous, 

 solitary, terminal, pendent, elliptic-ovoid, about twice the length of the 

 leaves. Scales — About thirty or more oblong, roundish, concave, margin 

 entire, thin, translucent, finely corrugate striate on the back ; base 

 abrupt, subauricled, stoutly attached to the ligneous axis. Bracts — 

 Three-lobed ciliate, villous in. long.) Seeds (including wing) scarcely 

 less than the scale, wings oblong oblique, broader at the base, some- 

 what suddenly narrowed above, obtuse, laterally warped or carinated, 

 seeds proper, ovate, light-brown or drab colour, uniformly marked by 

 three minute ovate glands on the side looking towards the base of the 

 cone. A tree 80 to 100 feet in height, of dark verdure and graceful 

 appearance. The branchlets are very villous, slender, and drooping. The 

 timber is said to be firmer, finer, and straighter grained than the Cana- 

 dian hemlock spruce, which it represents on the Pacific coast. It is certainly 

 closely allied to A. Canadensis, but I believe, with Kellog, that it is dis- 

 tinct. Even the Canadian woodsmen, who are very apt to forget that simi- 

 larity is not identity, and apply "old country" names to anything at all 

 resembling what they are familiar with in Canada or Maine, recognise this. 



About three o'clock p.m. we called a halt to take counsel, after having 

 tracked along the banks for about twelve miles, the river dashing over 

 rocks or flowing calmly over gravelly spit, through wooded meadows or 

 high trap banks, backed by snow-peaked hills, from which the melting 

 snow was leaping down in cataracts, now hid among the dark pines, 

 and again bounding over some rock, until it fell in a sheet over the 

 bank of the river. On starting, we had only taken a few biscuits, ex- 

 pecting to find the river merely a freshet from the mountain, and that we 



