THE TECHNOLOGIST. [Sept. 1, 1865. 
70 NATURAL CAPABILITIES OF BRITISH COLUMBIA. 
shanties of the woodmen who prepare fuel for the steamers. Higher 
up, the hills approach the stream, the currents become rapid, and small 
Chinese mining-camps dot the banks and bars. 
From Yale upwards, a noble road executed at vast labour and outlay, 
enters the passes of the Fraser, and traverses the faces of cliffs and 
precipices, and slides of disintegrated rock, that two years ago, 
seemed to bid defiance to any efforts of the engineer. For sixty 
miles upwards, it winds through the magnificent scenery of the 
Canons, crossing over to the left bank of the river by a suspension 
bridge thrown across the chasm at a point where it is only ninety 
yards in width. Soon after passing Lytton the forest is left 
behind, and the road approaches the belt of pastoral country, and, 
gradually emerging from the Cascade range, reaches 1 the green hill* 
and valleys, and the picturesque country of the central districts. From 
a point twenty miles below Fort Alexander, the Fraser may again be 
ascended in a small steam -vessel built on the spot, for whhh all the 
machinery and fittings were carried up on mule's backs, long before the 
road was finished for waggon -traffic. Disembarking at the mouth of 
the Quesnelle, the traveller reaches William's Creek by a ride of sixty 
miles, over the one good trail in Carilxx). A westerly loop of this- route 
branches off forty miles above New Westminister, passes through a low 
gap in the Cascade range, along a chain of lakes connected by roads ? 
and rejoins it 150 miles south of Fort Alexander. 
It has been considered questionable whether the Fraser Kiver is 
likely to continue to be the great avenue for the conveyance of all 
traffic towards the mining districts, and several of the more northerly 
inlets on the coast have been recently examined, with the view of dis- 
covering a shorter route to Cariboo. The results of these examinations 
are, on the whole, discouraging. It appears, from reports on the sub- 
jects, that while the rivers which discharge into these inlets, are unnavi- 
gable for steamers, and facilities for the establishment of seaport towns 
almost wholly wanting^ the districts which would be traversed in cross- 
ing from the coasts to the mines are generally sterile, and unattractive, 
and lie at too high an elevation to admit of the establishment of really 
good permanent routes. Moreover, it is shown that the actual shorten- 
ing of the amount of land communication would be almost inappre- 
ciable, since the Fraser admits of navigation both in the lower and 
upper portions of its course. Those and other drawbacks are likely to 
lead to the abandonment of any projects for the establishment of coasL- 
routes, for at any rate some time to come, and, keeping in view the 
probable extension of the gold-fields, southward from Cariboo, it seems 
likely that the existing routes will in future be adopted as the perma- 
nent highways of commerce. 
The journey from New Westminster to Cariboo, by either of these 
routes, may now be easily accomplished in from six to seven days. As 
yet. the benefits arising from improved communications, have hardly 
