TOPOGRAPHY. Except the remote, almost un inhabitable northeastern corner, British Colum bia is, as it is popularly called, a 'sea of moun tains.' Their general trend is northwest-south east, in conformity with that of the American Cordillera, of which they are a part: but bis torieally they have much local individuality. Grographically, the mountains fall into three systems—the Rocky Mountains, in the eastern half of the province, the Cascade Range in the western half, and the Coast Range, whose sum mits constitute the large islands. But one must be more minute, in order to understand the geography of this region. The Rocky Moun tains. along the eastern border of the province, continue northwestward until they fade out in the hills about Dease Lake. In the southern part of the province, where they are crossed by the transcontinental railroad, they, with their subordinate ranges. are about 130 miles wide. and consist of lines and groups of upturned Carboniferous and Devonian strata, present ing vast dill' faces toward the northeast, and thinly wooded slopes toward the southeast. They are broken by cross-valleys, giving exit. to streams to How east as the sources of the North and South Saskatchewan, Athabasca. and Peace rivers, and to the west as tributaries of the Fraser and the Columbia ; geologically they may be regarded as the equivalent of the foot hills that border the front of the Rocky Moun tains farther south. These mountains rise from all area of depression, the general level of the plains about. their base being not above 3000 feet, and consequently their heights above the sea do not often exceed 10,000 feet (Leroy, Goodsir, and Victoria, and Dawson and Sir Donald among the Selkirks, are among the loftiest summits in the south, 10,000 to 11,000 feet in height) ; but far ther north, near latitude 53°, a much greater elevation is attained, a group of peaks lying near the headwaters. of the Saskatchewan rising seem ingly to 13.000 and 14.000 feet. Mounts Brown and Hooker are near this region. but their eleva tions are much less than they were at one time supposed to be. The passes are correspondingly low, those used by the railroads or for wagon roads varying from 5200 to 5500 feet at their summits. West of these mountains, and divided from them by a line of distant though narrow gorges, occupied by Kootenay Lake and by the bead-streams, successively northward, of the Co lumbia, Canoe, and Fraser rivers, there rises the Columbia or Gold Range, which is composed of Arelucan rocks and represents the geological backbone of the cordillera. A part of it, or close ly bound in with it, soutn of the 52d paral lel is the magnificent glacier-crowned Selkirk Range, around which the Columbia makes its way in a loop of continuous cannons. and west of which it flows southward. through the long and narrow Arrowhead Lake. into the Unit ed States. The small and comparatively open region at the southern end of the Selkirk Range, in the central depression of which lie Kootenay Lake and the tortuous Kootenay Riv er, is 'the Kootenay country,' which during the last decade of the Nineteenth Century became prominent and populous as a mining and stock raising region. 'West of the Columbia gorges lies the comparatively low, rounded, and forested Gold Range proper, which is traceable north to the 54th parallel, where the head-stream of the Fraser forms a loop about its terminus, just as the Columbia does about the Selkirks. It is in
the Selkirks that is situated the group of great glaciers, so easily accessible and constantly visited by tourists from the Canadian l'acifie Railway (•hich (Tosses the range through Rog er's Pass, 4300 feet). among a cluster of sum mits—Sir Donald, Mount Bonney. etc.—exceed ing I0,000 feet in altitude and perpetually cov ered with snow and ice. The Gold Range takes its name from being the place where profitable gold-mines were first found in the interior.
West of this system there lies a plateau val ley about 100 miles broad, continued from the United States northward 700 miles through British Columbia. Its northern portion holds the Parsnip and Findlay rivers. which, meeting on the 511th parallel. form the Peace River and break through to the east. South of a dividing east and west line of hills, on the 54th parallel, the waters gather in the large Fraser and Thompson rivers. These flow south through deep cuts in the Carboniferous and later sur face rocks. and haring united, cut their way to the Pacific, near the international boundary. in a series of remarkable canons, followed by the transcontinental railway. This interior plateau', whose valleys have a general level of about 1200 feet above the sea, is deeply cut by its many streams, diversified by hills, and contains many lakes confined in elongated valleys, of which the largest are Babble and Stewart lakes, in the far north; Quesnel Lake, in the centre; the Sica mous lakes. near the Canadian Pacific Railway: and the long and important Okanagan Lake, in the south.
The mountains which lie between this interior valley region and the Pacific Coast are locally known as the Cascades, because they seem con tinuous with the Cascade Mountains of Oregon: but they are an immense local uplift, *Mc 100 miles iu width, reaching from the Fraser Delta, which river in reality passes around their south ern end rather than across time uplift, northward to the break in the coast marked by Chatham Sound. the Skcena River, Portland Canal, etc. They consist of a huge mass of Paleozoic rocks. which have been so compressed, broken, and heated by intrusions of granite and other yi•s as to be largely converted into crystal line rocks and greatly displaced; so much so as to be turned completely upside down over large areas. Hence the scenery is extremely rugged and picturesque. The parallel range on Van couver Island, though similarly ancient. seems to have been less violently disturbed in its ele vation. Little exploration has been made of these ranges, whose crowded peaks rise 8000 to 10.001) feet above the sea, and are loaded with snow fields and glaciers. Their seaward side is deeply unheated by long, narrow inlets (line har bors), which make the coast closely resemble that of Norway. Sonic of these inlets penetrate the mountains for many milesr as 11 owe Sound, Jervis and Bruce inlets, the latter connected with the large interior Chiles Lake. Dean Inlet and Douglas Channelwind inland for more than 50 miles each, and the Strait of Georgia and Queen Charlotte Sound are only similar arms of the sea, meeting behind Vancouver Island in the narrow water plssage of Johnstone Strait.