The top was in general outline a level grass-covered plateau, and beyond another nearly parallel valley, drained by a fork of Beaver Creek, defined the plateau at an equal breadth of about half a mile, and about five miles long. At right angles to the precipices overhanging the valleys a number of low ridgos cut the plateau across from side to side. He counted seven of them. They were nearly equidistant, and the ground between dipped in a gentle even curve. British Columbia and Washington Tciritory stood unrivalled for the grandeur of their pine forestß. The forests of the Selkirks consisted principally of Doug las fir, cedar, spruce, hemlock, and balsam. Roughly speaking, he had enumerated them with regard to ele vation : the balsam-!, resembling our ! silver fire, as a rule, being nearest to the | snowline. They nil attained huge ditnen | sions, cedars eight feet iu diameter being frequently mot with, an-'l they often grew so closa together that ho could not pass between their trunks. Fires had made havoc with these forests from time immemorial; lightning and spontaneous combustion caused by friction no doubt had done their work. The Indians were known to have burned tho forests for the purpose of producing a good crop of berries on the undergrowth in the ensuing year. It was much to be fen red that the fate of the most useful portion of these forests, that near the railway, was now sealed, for the destruction wrought by (-parks from the engine and by neglected camp fires was of too constant occurrence for even the wonderful recuperative powers of the vegetation in these regions to stand against it. When the trees first caught fire the flames ran wildly through their tops and lighter branches. The smouldering away of the trunks was an after process, and often took a long time. Sometimes tho fires were ex tinguished by rain before tho process was complete, so that in the midst of the living forest numbers of gaunt charred trunks stood up as monu ments of fires that occurred years ago. These rotted slowly, and usually fell after heavy rains, there never beiug any wind in these valleys except an occasional blast accompanying a thunder storm. Beneath the living trees thou sands of prostrate trunks liy piled in every conceivable position, and in every stage of decay. 