Following up the Arkansas River from Pueblo, a route goes northward behind and west of Pike's Peak into the Cripple Creek district, situated at an elevation of nearly ten thousand feet among the mountains, where in 1890 was a remote cattle ranch. The next year gold was found there, a new population rushed in, and it has since become a leading gold producer, its output of fourteen to twenty millions of gold annually almost turning Colorado from a silver to a gold State. There is now a population of twenty thousand, and the town has many substantial buildings. Westward the route crosses the Continental Divide and descends into the extensive South Park, covering two thousand square miles, reaching Leadville beyond, renowned as a mining camp that has developed into one of the highest cities of the world. In the early Colorado days this was the great gold placer mining camp of California Gulch. Afterwards it produced enormous quantities of silver from the extensive carbonate beds discovered in 1876, and the population expanded to thirty thousand, its name being changed to Leadville. Of late, its gold mining has again become profitable, and its population now is about fifteen thousand, the yield of silver, which once reached $13,000,000 annually, being much reduced owing to the decline in value. To the westward, the Colorado Midland Railway crosses the Continental Divide by the Hagerman Pass, at eleven thousand five hundred and thirty feet elevation, the highest elevation of any railway route across the Rockies. It descends rapidly to Aspen, where $8,000,000 of silver and gold are mined in a year. North of Leadville is the noted Mountain of the Holy Cross, fourteen thousand two hundred feet high, named from the impressive cruciform appearance of two ravines crossing at right angles and always filled with snow.

The Grand Canyon of the Arkansas is one of the most magnificent gorges in the Rocky Mountains. This river above Pueblo forces its passage through a deep pass known in the narrowest part as the Royal Gorge, where the railway is laid alongside the boiling and rushing stream, with rocky cliffs towering twenty-six hundred feet above the line. It ascends westward, beyond the sources of the Arkansas, crossing the Continental Divide by the Marshall Pass, at ten thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight feet elevation, the route up there showing, in its abrupt and bold curves, great engineering skill. The Pass is always covered with snow, and the descent beyond it is to the mining town of Gunnison. The Gunnison River is followed down through its magnificent gorge, the Black Canyon giving a splendid display for sixteen miles of some of the finest scenery of the Rockies. The river is an alternation of foaming rapids and pleasant reaches, and within the canyon is the lofty rock pinnacle of the Currecanti Needle. The adjacent gorge of the Cimarron, a tributary stream, gives also a splendid display of Rocky Mountain wildness, and below it the river passes through the Lower Gunnison Canyon, bounded by smooth-faced sandstone cliffs, and finally it falls into Grand River, one of the head-streams of the Colorado. The combined magnificence of these canyons and mountains makes the environment of the Colorado mining region one of the most attractive scenic districts in America. The railways have arranged a route of a thousand miles through the mountains, starting from Denver, under the title of "Around the Circle," which crosses and recrosses the Continental Divide, threads the wonderful canyons, surmounts all the famous passes over the tops of the Rocky ranges, and includes the most attractive scenery of the district.

WYOMING FOSSILS.

The Union Pacific Railway, westward from Cheyenne in Wyoming, gradually ascends the slope and crosses the Continental Divide at Sherman, the pass being elevated eighty-two hundred and forty-five feet. Here, alongside the track, is the monument erected in memory of Oakes and Oliver Ames of Massachusetts, to whose efforts the construction of this pioneer railway across the Continent was largely due. Upon the western slope of the mountains the descent is to the Laramie Plains, an elevated plateau in Wyoming which is one of the best grazing districts of the country. In the midst of the region on the Big Laramie River is Laramie City, with ten thousand people, a prominent wool and cattle mart. To the north and west high mountains rise, out of which the river flows, and in this district is the great fossil region of Wyoming. This state is the most prolific producer of the skeletons of the enormous beasts that roamed the earth in prehistoric times. About ninety miles northwest of Laramie City are the greatest fossil quarries in existence, and the scientific hunters from all the great museums have been finding rich treasures there. We are told that in an early geological period Wyoming had numerous lakes and swamps and a semi-tropical climate. These huge animals then inhabited the lakes and swamps in large numbers. In dying, they sank into the mud, and their bones were covered by other deposits and became petrified. The extensive deposits of these bones are found where are supposed to have been the mouths of great water-courses, the huge animals, after death, having floated to where they are deposited in such large numbers. The belief is that through the geological eras these animals became covered with possibly twenty thousand feet of rock. Afterwards, the process by which the Rocky Mountains were formed tilted these rock beds, and the subsequent erosion of the strata brought to light these bone-deposits, made millions of years ago. For many years the scientists have been exhuming these skeletons, and have recovered the bones of over three hundred different species. They are of all sizes and characters, and here has been found the most colossal animal ever discovered on the earth, a dinosaur, nearly one hundred and thirty feet long, and thirty-five feet high at the hips and twenty-five feet at the shoulders. The skeleton of this immense creature, who is called a diplodocus, weighs twenty tons, and it is believed that when living he weighed sixty tons, having a neck thirty feet long and a tail twice that length. Yet his head was very small, and the weight of the brain was not over five pounds. In comparison with the mammoth, heretofore regarded as so large, this huge beast, whose foot covered a square yard of earth, was in size as a horse is compared to a dog. Such are the contributions Wyoming is making to our great museums of science.

To the southward of the Laramie Plains is the Colorado North Park, among the mountains of that State, having an area of over two thousand square miles. Beyond, the railway route goes westward among hills and over the plateaus. This route is not as picturesque as some of the other Pacific railways, but in crossing the Continent it discloses very curious scenery. At places there are great Buttes, water-worn and rounded, rising in isolated grandeur; the plains and terraces are carved into elongated and wide depressions, as if abandoned rivers had run through them; there are long and regular embankments, strange hills of fantastic form, huge mounds, broken-down pyramids, vast stone-piles, and the most strange and extraordinary fashionings of nature, showing both water and fire to have been at work. Then the route passes the snow-clad Uintah Mountains to the southward, and crossing the Wahsatch range, enters Utah, traversing its remarkable enclosed basin, where the waters have no outlet to the sea, but flow into salt lakes which lose their surplus supplies by evaporation in the summer. Beyond, is the wild and picturesque Echo Canyon, with the green valley of Weber River and the Weber Canyon. Here is the gigantic Castle Rock, a rugged stone-pile fantastically carved by nature, having a giant doorway and all the semblance of a mountain fortress. Here is also the "One Thousand Mile Tree," on the northern side of the road, being that distance west of Omaha. In the Echo Gorge is the Hanging Rock, where Brigham Young, as the Mormon Pilgrims journeyed to their Utah home, is said to have preached the first sermon to them in the "Promised Land." The old-time emigrant trail passes through these canyons alongside the railway and the river. A remarkable sight within the Weber Canyon is the Devil's Slide, where on the face of an almost perpendicular red mountain, eight hundred feet high, there is inlaid a brilliantly white strip of limestone about fifteen feet wide, all the way from top to bottom, having enclosing white walls, the whole work being as regularly constructed as if built by a stonemason. Beyond, we come to Ogden, a busy industrial town of twenty thousand people, the western terminus of the Union Pacific Railway, and having another railroad leading thirty-seven miles southward to Salt Lake City.

GREAT SALT LAKE.

In the centre of the Rockies, occupying a large portion of Utah and adjacent States, is the "Great Basin," which, as remarked, has no drainage outlet for its waters. The geologists tell us that in ancient times this region was covered by two extensive lakes, one of them in the Pleistocene era occupying the now desert interior basin of Utah. This extinct lake, whose ancient shores can be distinctly traced, has been named Lake Bonneville. When at its greatest expansion, it covered twenty thousand square miles, and the waters were nearly a thousand feet deep, overflowing to the northward into a branch of Shoshoné River through a deep pass, and going thence to the Pacific. The waters of this lake, by climatic changes, gradually dwindled, the loss by evaporation overcame the rainfall supply, the overflow ceased, and then the lake dried up, revealing the desert bottom. Of its waters there now remain the Great Salt Lake of Utah, about eighty miles long and from thirty to fifty miles wide, very shallow, averaging only twenty feet depth, and not over fifty feet in the deepest place, having monotonously flat shores on the desert plateau, elevated forty-two hundred feet above the sea. Its dimensions vary according to the rainfall, the surface rising and falling in various periods of years. Several streams flow in, among them the Jordan River, forty miles long, draining Utah Lake to the southward. The waters are densely salt, varying from fourteen to twenty-two per cent. as the lake is high or low (compared with three to four per cent. in the ocean), and it is estimated to contain four hundred million tons of salt. Not a fish can live there excepting a small brine shrimp. A bath in the lake is novel, as the density makes the body very buoyant, easily floating head and shoulders above the water.

To this desert region, after being driven from Nauvoo on the Mississippi, Brigham Young brought his first Mormon colony by a long journey across the plains and mountains, a band of one hundred and forty-three persons, arriving in July, 1847, Utah then being Mexican territory. They organized the State of Deseret, and it afterwards became a Territory of the United States. By prodigious labors, constructing irrigation canals to bring in the mountain streams, they made the soil productive, and now it is one of the most fertile valleys in the country. Almost the whole flow of the Jordan River is thus used for irrigation. Colonies and proselytes were brought in from various parts of the world, until two hundred thousand Mormons came to Utah, and after protracted conflicts with the Government, polygamy was declared illegal, and its discontinuance was ordered by proclamation of the Mormon President. Twelve miles from the Great Salt Lake is the Utah capital and Mormon Zion, Salt Lake City, where the Latter-Day Saints and Gentiles together exceed fifty thousand. Its prosperity is largely due to the extensive mining interests of the surrounding country. The lofty Wahsatch Mountains are close to the city on the northern and eastern sides, while to the south, seen over a hundred miles of almost level plain, is a magnificent range of snow-covered mountains, this being the perpetual and awe-inspiring view from all parts of the city. The streets are wide and lined with shade trees, the residences surrounded by gardens, and irrigation canals border all the thoroughfares, so that the whole place is embosomed in foliage, and the delicious green adds to its scenic attractiveness. The Temple Block of ten acres, the sacred square of the Mormons, is the centre from which the streets are laid towards the four cardinal points of the compass. A high adobé wall surrounds it, and here is the great Mormon Temple of granite, which was forty years building, and cost over $4,000,000, having three pointed towers at each end, the loftiest being surmounted by a gilded figure of the Mormon angel Moroni. Here is also the Mormon Tabernacle, a huge oval-shaped structure, surmounted by a roof rounded like a turtle-back, the interior accommodating twelve thousand people. This is their great meeting-place, and they also have a smaller Assembly Hall for religious services. These are the chief buildings of Salt Lake City. To the eastward in the suburbs is the military post of Fort Douglas, where the troops are barracked that guard the Mormon capital. In the earlier period, when there were fears of trouble, a large garrison was kept at this extensive fortification to maintain government control.

OGDEN TO SACRAMENTO.

Westward from Ogden in Utah the Union Pacific route to California is continued upon the Southern Pacific system, that company having absorbed the original Central Pacific road. It passes Corinne, the largest Gentile city in Utah, and then through the Promontory Mountains, on the northern verge of Great Salt Lake. It was at Promontory Point on May 10, 1869, that the railway builders of this original transcontinental line, coming both ways, met, and joined the tracks. The last tie was made of California rosewood, trimmed with silver, and the last four spikes were of silver and gold. The final golden spike was driven with a silver hammer in the presence of a large and silent assemblage. The locomotives coming from the East and the West met, as Bret Harte has written:

Beyond, the Great American Desert, an alkaline waste, is crossed, the State of Nevada is entered, the Humboldt River is followed for awhile, and then Truckee River is ascended through the Pleasant Valley, leading into the Sierra Nevada, the lower mountain slopes covered with magnificent forests and the railroad protected from avalanches by snow-sheds. The Humboldt River has no outlet. It spreads out in an extensive sheet of water known as the "Carson Sink" and evaporates. At Reno is the Nevada State University, and as this is a silver region there are extensive smelting mills. Thirty-one miles southward is Carson, the capital of Nevada, and twenty-one miles farther the famous silver-mining town of Virginia City, with ten thousand people, built half-way up a steep mountain slope and completely surrounded by mountains. Virginia City stands directly over the noted Comstock Lode, and here are the Bonanza Mines, which were such prolific producers in the great silver days. This lode has produced over $450,000,000, chiefly silver, and it is drained by the Sutro Tunnel, nearly four miles long, which cost $4,500,000 to construct. Nearby, on the California boundary, and at six thousand feet elevation, is the beautiful Lake Tahoe, one of the loveliest sheets of water in the world, twenty-two miles long, very deep, surrounded by snow-clad mountains, and yet it never freezes, its outlet being the Truckee River. In a region of many lakes, it is known as "the gem of the high Sierras." To the westward of Reno is another lovely sheet of water, Donner Lake, embosomed in the lap of towering hills, its name coming from an early explorer, Captain Donner, who, with many of his party, perished on its shores during a heavy snowstorm in 1846. The top of the Sierra Nevada is crossed through a tunnel at Summit Station, elevated seven thousand feet, and beyond there is a complete change both in climate and vegetation, the descent being rapid and the transition from arctic snows to sub-tropical flowers very quick. The line is in many places carved out of the faces of startling precipices, and here it rounds the famous beetling promontory known as Cape Horn. Then, coming down among the orchards and vineyards, it enters the wide and fertile Sacramento Valley, and almost at sea-level comes to the capital of California, the city of Sacramento, built on the eastern bank of Sacramento River just below the mouth of the American River. It is a busy city with thirty thousand people, and has a large and handsome State Capitol.

TRANSCONTINENTAL ROUTES.

The Northern Pacific Railway, the next route northward, after following up the Yellowstone River to Livingston, at the entrance to Yellowstone Park in Montana, ascends the Belt Mountains, crossing them through Bozeman Tunnel at an elevation of nearly fifty-six hundred feet. This range is an outlying eastern spur of the Rockies. The road passes the mining town of Butte, there being forty thousand people in the neighboring settlements. Here are many gold, silver and copper mines, including the great Anaconda Mine, which was sold in 1898 to the company at present working it for $45,000,000, the product of the mine being silver and copper. The Butte copper output is two hundred and fifty million pounds annually, and the smelting-works at Anaconda are the largest in the world. At Three Forks, not far away, is the confluence of the Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin Rivers, forming the Missouri. Beyond is Helena, the capital of Montana, built in the Prickly Pear Valley near the eastern base of the main Rocky Mountain range and having fifteen thousand population. This is in another rich mining district, and the "Last Chance Gulch," running through the city, has yielded over $30,000,000 gold, while all around are gold, silver, copper and lead-deposits. Twenty-four miles from Helena, the main range of the Rockies is crossed by the Mullen's Pass tunnel at fifty-five hundred and fifty feet elevation. At Gold Creek in the valley beyond, the last golden spike of the Northern Pacific Railway was driven in September, 1883, uniting the tracks which had advanced from the east and west and met there. President Henry Villard made this the occasion of great festivity, bringing many train-loads of distinguished men to the ceremony, and shortly afterwards the company, which was heavily in debt, went into a Receivership. The railroad follows the Missoula and Pend d'Oreille (the "earring") Rivers, which unite in Clark's Fork, a tributary of the Columbia River, and enters Idaho, "the gem of the mountains," or, as called by the Nez Perces, Edah-hoe; finally coming to Spokane in Washington State. This busy manufacturing town of over twenty thousand people was burnt in 1889, but has entirely recovered from the calamity. The Spokane River descends one hundred and fifty feet in two falls within the town, furnishing an admirable water-power. To the southwest is the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers, and beyond, the railway penetrates the defiles of the Cascade Mountains, the northern prolongation of the California Coast range, the Northern Pacific line finally terminating at Tacoma on Puget Sound.

The great Columbia is the chief river draining the western slopes of the Rockies. It has a broad estuary, and in May, 1792, Captain Robert Gray of Boston, coasting along the shore in his bark "Columbia Rediviva," discovered it, was baffled more than a week before he could cross the shallow bar at its mouth, and gave it the name of his vessel. The Spaniards marked his discovery on one of their maps without any head to the river, recording alongside in Spanish y-aun se ignora—meaning "and it is not yet known" where the source of the river is situated. The famous Danish geographer, Malte-Brun, reading this, made the mistake of recognizing the word ignora as Oregon, and published it in the early nineteenth century as the name of the country, to which it has stuck. Thus is Oregon, like California, a name given without meaning. The Columbia is an enormous river, over twelve hundred miles long, rising in Otter Lake, just north of the Dominion boundary, making a long loop up into British America, then coming down into the United States between the Rockies and the Cascades with another broad western loop, and swinging around to the southeast, finally turning westward to form the boundary between Oregon and Washington State to the Pacific. The chief tributary is Snake River, known also as Lewis Fork, which comes out of the western verge of the Yellowstone Park, makes an extensive southern bend through Idaho and is nine hundred miles long, being a most remarkable river. West of the Rockies is an enormous area, estimated at two hundred and fifty thousand square miles, that has been subjected to volcanic action, being overflowed by what is known as the "Columbia lava," in deposits from one-half mile to a mile in thickness. Through this region the Snake River has carved out its extraordinary canyon in places four thousand feet deep, and in some respects rivalling the canyons of the Colorado. Down in the bottom of this gigantic fissure can be seen the ancient rocky formation of the mountains, elsewhere covered by the sheet of lava. The curious sight is also given of various tributaries sinking under the strata of lava and ultimately coming out through the sides of the canyon, pouring their waters down into the main river far below.

Within this canyon the Snake River goes over the noted Shoshoné Falls, a series of cataracts. The first one is the Twin Falls descending one hundred and eighty feet, then the river goes down the Bridal Veil of eighty feet descent, and finally it pours in grandeur over the great Shoshoné Falls, nearly a thousand feet wide, and descending two hundred and ten feet, a most magnificent cataract. After the confluence with the Columbia, the latter river leaves the region of sands and lava for the rocks and mountains, and here are the Dalles. These are mainly flagstones that make troughs and fissures, and compress the channel. At first the river, a mile wide, goes over a wall twenty feet high and stretching completely across, and the enormous current is compressed not far below into a narrow pass only a hundred and thirty feet wide and nearly three miles long, encompassed by high perpendicular cliffs of such regular formation that they seem as if constructed of masonry. The Dalles make crooked, trough-like channels through which the waters wildly rush. The amazing way in which the agile fish are able to ascend these rapids and cataract through all the turmoil, seeking the quiet river reaches above, caused the Indians to call the place the Salmon Falls. Here is the town of the Dalles, the supplying market for the Idaho mining district, an active manufacturing place with five thousand people. There are various islands in these rapids, most of them having been used for Indian burial-places and some having numerous graves. Below, the Columbia presents very fine scenery in passing the defiles of the Cascade Mountains, and to the southward is the noble form of Mount Hood, rising over eleven thousand feet, displaying glaciers and having snow-covered peaks all about. At the Cascade Locks the Columbia descends another rapid, where huge rocks buffet the turbulent waters, the whirling foaming torrent wildly rushing among them. Here the descent is twenty-five feet, and the Government has improved the navigation by a spacious ship canal a mile long, built at a cost of $4,000,000. Enormous cliffs, some of grand and imposing form, environ the river in passing through these Cascade Mountains, some rising twenty-five hundred feet. We are told these mountains were first named from the numerous cascades which pour in from tributary streams coming over the cliffs and through the crevices of this tremendous chasm. Often a dozen of these fairy waterfalls can be seen in a single river reach, some dissolving into spray before half-way down, others stealing through crooked crannies, and many being tiny threads of glistening foam apparently frozen to the mountain side. Here is Undine's Veil pouring over a broader ledge, and the Oneonta, Horse Tail, La Tourelle and Bridal Veil cataracts, with the far-famed Multnomah Fall, the most beautiful of all, eight hundred feet high, descending with graceful gentleness over the massive cliffs a long and filmy yet matchless thread of silver spray. Emerging, the Columbia receives the Willamette River, coming up from the south on the western verge of the Cascades, and then proceeds grandly by its broad estuary to the Pacific.

Near the Canadian border the Great Northern Railway crosses the continent, surmounting the Rockies at the lowest elevation of any of the transcontinental lines. Starting from St. Paul, it traverses the Devil's Lake country in Montana, passes Fort Buford on the Upper Missouri, and crosses the Rockies at fifty-two hundred feet elevation. Beyond is the Kootenay gold district, and the road comes to Spokane, crosses the Columbia River and surmounts the Cascades at thirty-three hundred and seventy-five feet elevation, the mountain top being pierced by a three-mile tunnel. Then traversing sixty miles of fine forests, the railway terminates at Everett on Puget Sound.

THE CANADIAN PACIFIC ROUTE.

The Canadian Pacific Railway, crossing the Continent in the Dominion of Canada, west of Winnipeg traverses the prairies of Manitoba and Assiniboia until they gradually blend into the rounded and grass-covered foothills of Alberta, finally rising nearly a thousand miles west of the Red River into the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies. This is the garden region of the Canadian Northwest for wheat-growing and cattle-grazing, and it stretches in almost limitless expanse a fertile empire far northward to Edmonton and Prince Albert, with branch railways leading up there, the rich black soils testifying the wealth in the land. At Regina is the capital of the Northwest Territory, three hundred and fifty-seven miles west of Winnipeg, the headquarters of the Canadian "North West Mounted Police," a superb body of one thousand picked men who control the Indians and maintain order in the Northwest Territory. The Lieutenant-Governor residing here is a potentate governing a wide domain spreading out to the Rockies and up to the North Pole. The town which is his capital is scattered rather loosely over the prairie. In early times a hardy pioneer came to this frontier, and at the crossing of a little stream west of Regina his cart broke down. The Cree Indians watched him mend it, and afterwards spoke of the stream in their language as "The creek where the white man mended the cart with a moose jawbone." This elaborate name has since been contracted into Moose Jaw, a town where a branch line comes into the Canadian Pacific up through Dakota from St. Paul and Minneapolis. The route farther westward is in the land of the Crees, and crosses the South Saskatchewan River at Medicine Hat, a settlement which the matter-of-fact people call "The Hat" for short. The Indians say that the Great Spirit had a breathing-place in the river nearby, where it never was frozen even in the coldest winters. He always appeared in the form of a serpent, and once, when a chief was walking on the shore, the serpent came and told him if he would throw his squaw into the opening as a sacrifice, he would become a great warrior and medicine man. He was ambitious, but did not wish to lose her, so he threw his dog in, but the indignant serpent demanded the squaw. The Indian told her of the conditions, she consented to the sacrifice, her dead body was thrown in, and after a night of vigil the chief received from the serpent a warrior's medicine hat, handsomely trimmed with ermine, and was always after victorious. Thus the locality became the Medicine Hat, and the Indians watch the river in severe winters, glad to find the spot is not frozen and that the Great Spirit still has his breathing-place and remains with them.

To the westward the snow-capped Rockies become visible, and here are the reservations of the Blackfeet Indians, who were the most warlike tribe of the region, and hunted the buffalo as far south as the Missouri. The memory of Crowfoot, their leading chief, is preserved in the name of the railway station. The Bow River, an affluent of the Saskatchewan, is followed up to Calgary, the centre of the ranching district of Alberta, a town at thirty-four hundred feet elevation, having high mountains overhanging its western verge. Here are branch railways north and south, leading along the eastern foothills of the Rockies, which are filled with herds of cattle and horses, the roads going up to Edmonton and down into the United States. The warm "Chinook" winds from the Pacific coast, coming through the mountain passes, temper the cold, making the balmy atmosphere favoring grass and animals alike. The Pacific route follows the Bow River Valley into the heart of the mountains, with magnificent snow-covered peaks all about, their saw-like edges, gaunt crags and almost denuded surfaces justifying their name of the Rockies.

BANFF.

The display of mountain scenery along the Canadian Pacific line in passing through the Rockies is the finest in North America, coming largely from two causes, each contributing to the grandeur and impressiveness of the view. The width of the Rocky Mountain ranges in Alberta and British Columbia is not much over three hundred miles, while in the United States they are scattered and spread over a thousand miles of space with intervening tameness. The railway passes also are lower in British Columbia, so that the adjacent peaks rise higher above the valleys, making them really grander mountains for the spectator, who is thus brought to the very bases of such stalwart peaks as Mount Stephen and Mount Sir Donald, rearing their snow-covered summits on high for a mile and a half above his head. Both in concentration and elevation, as well as by the terrific wildness of the Kicking Horse and Rogers Passes, by which the ranges are crossed, the magnificence of this part of the Rockies is displayed. Just within the eastern verge of the mountains are the Banff Hot Springs, which, with their environment, make the "Canadian Rocky Mountains Park." This reservation covers the Bow River Valley and adjacent mountains. The winding river comes from its glacier sources in the west through a broad deep fissure. This is crossed almost at right angles by another valley, having the Spray River coming up from the south through it to join the Bow, while to the north the floor-level of this valley is higher, but without any distinctive stream. These valleys and their enclosing peaks are all formed on a scale of stupendous magnificence, yet so clear is the atmosphere that distance is dwarfed, making the views perfect. Going down to the river bank, where the deep, trough-like gorges come together, it is found that the action of the waters has thoroughly displayed the geological formation of these mountains, the enormous rock strata standing up inclined from the perpendicular generally at an angle of about 30°, being all tilted towards the eastward. Where these strata-edges and ends are eroded, they are cut off almost vertically, and thus they rise on high into sharp jagged peaks like saw-teeth. Stunted firs cover much of the lower slopes, but the tops are all bare, being rough, or denuded and smoothed rocks, snow-clad, excepting where the slope is too steep to hold it.

Along the winding canyon from the northwest rushes the Bow River, sliding in noisy turmoil, with ample spray and silvery foam, down a series of cascades, making a most beautiful cataract, then turning sharply at a right angle to the northeast to go around the end of a mountain. The bright green waters in full volume swiftly glide around the bend and away through the narrow gap formed between two towering cliffs into a deep gorge several miles long. The smaller, but even more swiftly-darting Spray River, dashes along rapids and joins the Bow just at the bend. Such is the scene giving the central point of beauty within this grand amphitheatre of high mountains, overlooked from an elevated plateau above the waterfall, where the landscape is finest. The Rocky Mountains Park includes about two hundred and sixty square miles of streams, lakes and enclosing mountains, improved by many miles of good roads and bridle-paths to develop its beauties. The original attraction was the Banff warm sulphur springs, appearing along the side and base of Sulphur Mountain, rising on the southern bank of Bow River above the waterfall. The temperature of the waters changes little from 90°, and they are extensively used for bathing, being recommended for rheumatic troubles. One spring of copious flow is a pool within a capacious dome-shaped cavern, hollowed out of a mound of calcareous tufa. This is the crater of an extinct geyser, the orifice at the top, which had been its vent, being availed of for light and ventilation. High up among the mountains to the eastward is the Devil's Lake, a beautiful crescent-shaped sheet of water much like a river, eleven miles long, and enclosed by towering peaks.

BANFF TO VANCOUVER.

Westward from Banff the main range of the Rockies is crossed at an elevation of fifty-three hundred feet, the Continental Divide. The Bow River Valley is followed up to Mount Stephen, which is encircled to the northward. This splendid duomo-like mountain rises thirteen thousand two hundred feet, being named after George Stephen, Lord Mountstephen, the first president of the railway. In approaching, there are passed scores of towering snow-clad peaks. At Laggan, among them, at more than six thousand feet elevation, are three gems of the mountains, the Lakes of the Clouds—Louise, Mirror and Agnes. At the summit of the pass a rustic signboard bears the words "The Great Divide," marking the backbone of the Continent, whence tiny rills flow alongside the railway in both directions, a little brook leading eastward down to the Bow, whose waters go out to Hudson Bay and the Atlantic, while to the westward another diminutive stream is the head of Wapta River, flowing into the Columbia and thence to the Pacific. Three pretty green lakes start the Wapta or Kicking Horse River, its northern branch coming from a huge glacier nine miles long, and its volume expanding from a hundred cascades and brooks tumbling down from the snowbanks and ice-fields all about. Then it crosses the flat floor of a deep valley, which soon develops into a series of terrific gorges, as with rapids and cataracts the stream suddenly drops into an abyss and foams and roars deep down in an impressive canyon. The railway repeatedly crosses this stupendous chasm in getting down the Kicking Horse Pass, giving grand views of high mountains all around, and after a scene of true alpine magnificence it comes out at the broad valley of the Columbia. This river goes northward between the Rockies and the Selkirks, the next western range, and turning westward penetrates them and flows southward on their western flanks into the United States.

Our railway route next goes up the Beaver River gorge to cross the Selkirks through the Rogers Pass at forty-three hundred feet elevation, where Mount Sir Donald guards the Pass. It traverses a region displaying grand scenery, mounting high above the streams, the gorge filled with giant trees between Mounts Sir Donald and Hermit, with frequent airy bridges thrown across the subsidiary ravines, down which come sparkling cataracts. This narrow gorge has frequent avalanches, so that much of the road is covered by ponderous snow-sheds. This is the Rogers Pass, displaying savage grandeur, and was first entered by white men from British Columbia under Major Rogers in 1883, when the railway route was surveyed. It is also reserved for a Canadian National Park. The Hermit Mountain overlooks the pass from the north, while on the south side a range extends westward to the ponderous and lofty pyramidal top of Mount Sir Donald, rising ten thousand seven hundred feet, named for Sir Donald Smith, Lord Strathcona, President of the Bank of Montreal. Alongside is the great glacier of the Selkirks, whose waters flow into the deep valley of the Illecillewaet River, the "Dancing Water," by which the railway goes westward out of the mountains. Having crossed the summit of the pass, the railway makes a short curve into this valley, and gives a grand view of the great glacier covering all of its head. Here is the Glacier House, on a flat surface of delicious greensward alongside the line, having a silvery cascade pouring for a thousand feet down the opposite mountain. Beyond, the Illecillewaet descends rapids and the railway has a difficult task in getting down the steep and contorted gorge by startling loops until, finally emerging from the mountain fastness on the western slope of the Selkirks, it comes a second time to the open Columbia Valley, the river now flowing with greater volume southward towards the United States. Across the Columbia is the Gold range, the third mountain ridge to be crossed. This is done by the Eagle Pass, less difficult than the other passes through the Rockies, the crossing being made at two thousand feet elevation, and the route descending westward along Eagle River and several pleasant lakes that make its source and cover the floor of the higher valley. This stream leads into the Great Shuswap Lake, the largest body of water in British Columbia, spreading its sinuous arms like an octopus among the mountain ridges. This lake has over two hundred miles of coast-line, and is drained westward by Thompson River. To the southward it has a tributary flowing out of the long and slender Okanagan Lake, a sheet of water among the mountains extending seventy miles and having fertile shores.

The Coast range of the Rockies is still beyond us, the fourth and last ridge of these wonderful mountains, through which the Canadian Pacific makes its way by going down the remarkable canyons of Thompson and Fraser Rivers for nearly three hundred miles. At the junction of the two forks of the Thompson is the town of Kamloops, its Indian name meaning "the confluence." It is in a good ranching district, and like all the settlements in British Columbia has quite an elaborate "China-town." Beyond Kamloops the Thompson canyon is entered, a desolate gorge almost without vegetation, through which a rapid torrent rushes, the high steep shores being composed of a rotten rock which water and frost have moulded into strange and fantastic shapes, while the stream constantly burrows more deeply into it. The mud-colored banks are thus carved into massive turrets, cones and pyramids, with groups of impressive columns standing on high, having colossal ranks of ghostly statues looking down from above. In one place a grand semicircular group of cowled and hooded monks with their backs to the river are kneeling apparently around a gigantic altar. Almost every conceivable form has been wrought by the running waters on these precipitous bluffs. Not a tree is seen, and all seems bleak desolation. At the Black Canyon the scene is mournfully terrific, the walls composed of an almost black sand, wherein the whirling river rapids have scooped out immense amphitheatres mounting almost perpendicularly for a thousand feet. Then a change comes, the steep and barren walls developing varieties of color, being streaked with creamy white, red, purple, yellow, maroon, dark brown and black in richest form, as the waters have run the different hued soils over them from top to bottom, the rushing river below being a bright emerald. It is a picture of parti-colored desolation, the gaudy hues and strange forms of these precipitous cliffs being the gorgeous exhibition of a most beautiful desert. This remarkable canyon is followed nearly a hundred miles until the Thompson flows into the Fraser River.

The Fraser Canyon is deep, and carries a larger river among higher mountains. Its shores are steep, but are composed of firmer rocks, along which the railway is constructed largely on galleries, with frequent tunnels. Deep in the fissure are Indians spearing for salmon, and an occasional Chinaman may be seen on a sand-bar washing out the silt to find gold, as both these rivers bring down gold-bearing sands. The rocky development of the Fraser and the magnitude of its canyon increase as it plunges deeper among the higher Coast range mountains. For thirty miles below North Bend, a place where enough flat land is left on a terrace for a little railway station, is the most impressive portion, and the final scene of grandeur on this route through the Rockies. Almost perpendicular enclosing mountains tower above, and the river is compressed by high walls of black rocks, so steep that the road is placed upon a shelf hewn out along them. Through this deep, contracted canyon the river winds, at times confined into such narrow crooked straits that the water rushes in swiftly-moving massive billows like the Niagara rapids. Tunnels pierce the jutting cliffs, bridges and walls carry the railway along, and at intervals wild cascades leap through fissures down the mountain sides. The ever-present and industrious Indians are seen in most perilous positions down by the river catching the bright-colored salmon, which they hang upon rude drying-poles among the crags. There is a brief little village, now and then, along this dreary canyon, where there may be a sparse bit of flat terrace, enabling a few white people to live in company with Indians and Chinamen, the "Joss House" of the Celestial and his queer-looking cemetery, with its tall poles and streamers to keep away the dreaded birds and evil spirits, being conspicuous. Thus the river forces its passage through the Coast range, until at Yale the mountains recede, the canyon gradually broadens into a flat intervale between distant ridges, and there are farms and pastures. As the railway emerges from the mountains, the gleaming white dome of the isolated snow-capped Mount Baker is seen glistening under the sunlight sixty miles away just beyond the United States border. The Fraser River finally flows into the Gulf of Georgia, after a course of six hundred miles through the mountains from the northward, the chief river of British Columbia. It was named for Simon Fraser of the Northwest Fur Company, who explored it to its source amid incredible hardships and difficulties in 1808. The finest timber grows throughout this region. The railway terminates at the city of Vancouver, on Burrard Inlet, a fine harbor of the Gulf of Georgia, founded in 1885, and having eighteen thousand people, with considerable manufactures and an extensive trade. The lower Fraser River is a great salmon-canning region, the shores having many canning-factories, while at New Westminster, the chief town, are large sawmills, the two products of this district being fish and lumber, and the Chinese, who are numerous, doing most of the labor.

BOUND TO ALASKA.

Westward from the Gulf of Georgia is Vancouver Island, stretching parallel to the coast and nearly three hundred miles long, the larger part of it being composed of mountains, some reaching an elevation of over seven thousand feet. It has fine forests and valuable coal mines at Nanaimo and Wellington, which furnish fuel supplies along the Pacific coast. The redoubtable Spanish adventurer, Juan de Fuca, discovered it in 1592, and his name was given the strait at its southern extremity, separating the island from the United States. The Spaniards held it until near the close of the eighteenth century, when Captain George Vancouver came with a squadron and it was surrendered to the English by the Spanish Governor Quadra, its name afterwards being called for many years Quadra and Vancouver, after the two officers. Upon a little harbor at the southeastern extremity in 1842, the Hudson Bay Company established Fort Victoria, which has since become the capital of the Province of British Columbia. This is a pleasant city of twenty-five thousand population, having an extensive Chinese quarter. To the westward is the important British naval station and dockyard of Esquimalt, upon an admirable land-locked harbor of large capacity.

For over a thousand miles, a series of internal waters behind large islands, with bays, straits and archipelagoes, lead northward from the Gulf of Georgia to Alaska, making one of the most admirable scenic routes in America. Their shores are high mountains covered with superb forests, and the voyage over these waters is most attractive. From the Gulf of Georgia the route passes through Discovery Passage, the Seymour Narrows (where the tide rushes sometimes at twelve knots an hour), Johnstone Strait, Broughton Strait, and Queen Charlotte Sound. North of Vancouver Island there is a short passage on the open sea and then Fitzhugh Sound is entered, opening into the Lama Passage and Seaforth Channel to Millbank Sound, where there is another brief open sea journey. Then various interior waters lead to Greenville Channel and Chatham Sound. High mountains are everywhere, and deep, narrow fiords run far up into the land, the journey displaying so much magnificent scenery that the mind soon becomes satiated with the excessive supply of unadulterated grandeur. In this region is the Nasse River, where in the spring the Indians catch the Oulichan or "candle-fish," which gives them light, this fish being so full of oil that when dry and provided with a wick it burns like a candle. Just beyond is the boundary of Alaska at fifty-four degrees forty minutes north latitude, the famous "fifty-four forty or fight" boundary of 1843, when the United States claimed that Oregon extended up to the Russian territory at that latitude, but afterwards abandoned the claim. Alaska is a very large country, exceeding one-sixth the area of the United States, and was bought from Russia by Secretary Seward in 1867 for $7,200,000, a price then deemed extravagant, but the purchase has been enormously profitable. The name is derived from the Indian Al-ay-ek-sha, meaning the "Great land." Besides its large extent of main land, it includes some fifteen thousand islands, and its enormous river, the Yukon, flowing into the Behring Sea, has a delta sixty miles wide at its mouth, is three thousand miles long, and is navigable for almost two thousand miles. Although Alaska's productiveness seems just beginning to be realized, yet it has yielded in gold and furs, fish and other products, since the purchase, over $150,000,000.