Sept. 1 1865.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 
BRITISH COLUMBIA. 55 
in one of the deep, narrow chasms of the central table-lands. Here the 
river, already increased in volume by the accession of numerous large 
tributaries in the upper portion of its course, again becomes unnavigable 
and its continually swelling waters, limited to a narrow channel, soon 
form a boiling torrent, increasing in velocity at every mile. At Lytton, 
the Fraser is joined by the Thompson, one of its largest affluents, and, 
entering the heart of the Cascade range, rushes for fifty miles through a 
stupendous gateway, replete with all that is grand and terrible in moun- 
tain and river scenery. The valley gradually narrows in, until, at its 
intersection with the principal crest, it dwindles down to a mere cleft in 
the range. Here the features of the pass attain to their most gigantic pro- 
portions. The river itself seems a mere brook in comparison with the 
huge mountains which project upwards on either side to altitudes of 
6,000 and 7,000 feet. Not unfrequently the slopes are almost wholly 
devoid of timber, and rise abruptly from the valley, massive, unbroken 
walls of granite and trap, standing in stupendous contrast to the forest 
scenery on the river-banks and islands. Here and there naked cliffs rise 
perpendicularly out of the water ; elsewhere the slopes are covered with 
immense slides of disintegrated rock, and countless waterfalls, thunder- 
ing down the crannies and crevices of the mountain sides, contribute to 
the wonders of the scene. At the ordinary stage of the river, the 
velocity of the current is from twelve to fifteen miles an hour ; but in 
summer, when its waters are swollen to twice their ordinary volume by 
the melting of the winter snow, it rises, in this portion of the pass, to as 
much as sixty feet above its usual level, and, tearing down a rocky 
narrow channel at the rate of twenty miles an hour, exhibits a terrific 
succession of rapids, falls and whirlpools. At Yale, the Fraser again 
becomes navigable, and forty miles lower down emerges from the 
tangled network of hills, and sweeps in bold curves and with 
diminished velocity through the level lands of its estuary to the sea. 
Unlike any of the other large rivers in British Columbia, the Fraser, 
throughout its entire course of 700 miles, nowhere expands into a lake. 
Its waters, therefore, arrive at the sea laden with sand and alluvium, 
and, being there met by the cross-tides of the Gulf of Georgia, the 
particles hitherto borne along by the current are deposited outside the 
entrance proper of the river. Thus, a series of shoals have been formed 
at the mouth, extending five miles to seaward, and right and left to 
distances of eight or miles ten along the coast. 
Fortunately, however, the great volume and impetus of the stream 
ensure one navigable channel through those shoals, and, at present, 
vessels drawing as much as twenty feet of water can pass easily upwards 
to the capital, and even to some twenty miles beyond it. 
New Westminster, the capital, stands on a commanding eminence on 
the right bank of the Fraser, fifteen miles from the mouth. The popu- 
lation i3 small, seldom exceeding 500 whites, and the city itself has not 
advanced with the rapidity usual in new countries, a circumstance 
