Mr W. S. Green in the Rockies.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 4982, 15 April 1889, Page 3

Mr W. S. Green in the Rockies.

The Eev. W. Spottiswood Green, the conqueror of Mount Cook, last year paid a visit of exploration to the glaciers of the Selkirk Range, a branch of the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia, and he road a paper on his observations before the Royal Geographical Society on Feb. 11th. The Canadian Pacific Railway runs near the range, and his party put up at the “ Glacier Hotel,” one of the railway stopping places. The Selkirks are drained by the Columbia river, which takes a great bend round the range. Numerous photographs had been taken of the grandly wooded valleys, but no one had given any account of the upper region of the mountain. Mr Green tackled apeak named the Sir Donald, in ordea to gain a commanding point whence he misfit obtain a general view of the show fields. The peak looked very difficult, but their first expedition landed them on a little peak on his southern shoulder. From the main peak, which rose 600 ft above them, they were hopelessly cut off by a cleft 200 ft deep. But from the point they reached they had most interesting views. From the the base of the peak they were on the great enow-field extended for over thirty miles. Beyond it to the southward, and away in ein unending scene, far as the eye could reach, rose range after range of snowy peaks with glaciers in the hollows ; peaks and glaciers were simply innumerable. The peaks did not rise so high above the general level of the glaciers as to be comparable with the higher ranges ofthe Swiss Alps. They resembled more some of the ranges of the Tyrol. The grand forest-clad valleys of the Selkirks could, however, scarcely he surpassed for beauty. Turning from the snow regions and looking eastward, an entirely different prospect presented itself. Down below were great rock precipices which, as they sat on their poak,seemed to overhang 5000 ft. Beyond a range of hills rose which, in form, differed completely from anything he ever before saw. They rose from Beaver Creek, first in slopes covered with scrub and forest to about 1000 ft, then came vertical precipices for 1000 ft more. 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 ridges 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 Colombia and Washington Territory stood unrivalled for the grandeur of their pine forests. The forests of the Selkirks consisted principally of Douglas fir, cedar, spruce, hemlock, and balsam. Roughly speaking., he had enumerated them with regard to elevation : the balsams, resembling our silver firs, as a rule, being nearest to the snowline. They all attained huge dimensions, cedars eight feet in diameter being frequently met with, and they often grew so close together that he 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 Indiana were known to have burned the forests for the purpose of producing a good crop of berries on the undergrowth in the ensuing year. It was much to ha feared that the fate of the most useful portion of these forests that .near the railway, was now sealed ,for the destruction wrought by sparks 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 emouldoring away of the trunks was an after process, and often took a long time. Sometimes the fires were extinguished by rain before the process was complete, so that in the midst of the living forest numbers of gaunt charred trunks stood up as monuments of fires that occurred years ago. These rotted slowly, and usually fell after heavy rains, there never being any wind in these valleys except an occasional blast accompanying a thunderstorm. Beneath the living trees thousands of prostrate trunks lay piled iu every conceivable position, and in every' stage of decay. These were to a certain extent overgrown by rhododendrons and blueberry bushes, and in the damper parts of the forests by the devil’s club —a plant beautiful to look at, with large bright green palmate leaves and tufts of coral red berries, but whose thorns, if they penetrated the flesh, produced festering sores. Picture him, with a 401 b pack on his back, creeping along a slippery, fallen trunk, fending off the devil’s club with an ice-axe, wriggling under fallen trees, or Bft. from the ground on the top of them, and they would have some idea of what travel in the Selkirks meant,