18 
sand-spits margining the Strait De Fuca. Nearly all the ves¬ 
sels stranded on the bar of the Columbia, and on the coasts ad¬ 
jacent, have drifted northwest; the cargoes and materials of 
those wrecks have invariably grounded on the coast of British 
Columbia ; all the deckloads of lumber thrown off of vessels on 
this coast, have, in every instance, landed either on Queen Char¬ 
lotte’s island or on the neighboring mainland. From such cir¬ 
cumstances we conclude that no current flows southward along 
the shores of Oregon and California. In the regions east of the 
Cascade mountains, in British Columbia and the eastern divis¬ 
ion of Washington Territory, strong indications of thermal in¬ 
fluences are manifest, which fortifies the belief that the thermal 
winds from the Indies are absorbed in tlie great basin of the Co¬ 
lumbia, and that those warm breezes exert a directing power in 
tempering the climate, even in the northern pass of the Rocky 
mountains. The Cariboo gold fields are secluded in mountain 
fastnesses. In the winter season the climate is severe, the frost 
is very keen; miners who have wintered in those fields affirm 
that in traveling southward sixty miles they enter a genial ther¬ 
mal climate. The warm winds rushing in through the mountain 
pass from the oeean exert a powerful effect in those regions, 
quickening vegetation, spurring the grass and exciting plants 
and flowers. The “ Hudson Bay Company ” have, for nearly 
half a century, maintained large tracts of prairie lands in the 
Kamaloops, where they have nurtured and reared herds of cattle 
and horses. This “ green spot in memory’s waste ” has proved 
a successful pasture ; while vast herds in Oregon and California 
perished from the inclemency of the climate. Stock grazing on 
those bleak prairies, in lat. 52° , throve and fattened. Notwith¬ 
standing that the company have never provided sheds or prov¬ 
ender, we have yet to learn that any considerable number of 
their cattle perished in any season from hunger or cold. “ In 
the economy of nature these thermal currents are only pipes of 
hot water, modifying the climate of continents by carrying heat 
from the warm cisterns of the south into the most distant places 
in the north. . . . Every ocean wind from every quarter, as 
it traverses over the stream of heat, takes up the warmth and 
carries it to the coast, so that the ocean current is re-enforced 
by an aerial current of constant influence. But these forces are 
aided by the configuration of the northwestern coast with a lofty 
and impenetrable barricade of mountains by which its islands 
