3D

“Forr Sr. Jamus, on Stuart Lake, anp Necnaco VALiey

““At Fort St. James we found in Mr. Gavin Hamilton’s garden fine cabbages,
cauliflowers, turnips, beets, carrots and onions, grown from seed in the open air without
forcing. Barley and potatoes are grown on a larger scale for use in the Fort. In his
flower garden, notwithstanding the rather severe frost of the evening of September 26th,
a species of mallow, mignonette, a mesembryanthemum, portulaca and sweet-pea were
still flourishing. On the evening of September 23rd, a light flurry of snow was experi-
enced on the high ridges above mentioned, but fell in the form of rain at lower levels.

“The confluence of the Stuart and Nechaco Rivers is known to the Indians as Chin-
lak. For nine and a half miles below this the ordinary flat country borders the stream
on both sides, several lower benches extending between the river and the general level
of the plain, generally with rather sandy soil. The river here turns northward, and
describes a semi-circle in passing through a low range of rocky hills, on the east side of
which is the Isle De Pierre Rapid, one of the worst in the river. From this place to
the mouth of the Chilaco——a tlstance of twelve miles in a direct course—the river is
rather crooked, and is depressed from 150 to 200 feet below the general level of the
surface of the country. A mile above the Chilaco the Na-tsen-kuz or White-mud Rapid
is formed by a projecting bed of basalt, underlain by soft Tertiary clays. From the
mouth of the Chilaco to Fort George, at the confluence of the Nechaco and Fraser—ten
miles—the river makes double this distauce into a great loop, with many convolutions.
Tt is rapid throughout, and in many places shallow.

“ForrT GEORGE AND Curnaco (Mup) River VaALiey.

** At Fort George wheat and grain of all sorts can be grown successfully. Very
fine and large potatoes were being dug at the time of my visit, and on October 10th the
stalks were frost-killed with the exception of the lower leaves.

** Having paid off my two Indians I waited at Fort George several days for the pack-
train, which finally arriving we set out by the trail down the Chilaco River for Black-
water Depot and Quesnel. The lower part of the valley of the Chilaco is wide and flat-
bottomed, probably averaging about a mile from rim to rim. It forms a great trough in
the generally level surface of the country, and is margined by abrupt slopes with occa-
sional bare bluffs of the white silts. Some parts of the bottom-land are heavily timbered
with Douglas fir, Englemann’s spruce and Abies lasiocarpa, tall and straight ; the two
former often reaching a diameter of three feet. There are a good many extensive patches
of open grassy land, elevated from five to ten feet above the river, and covered with a
heavy growth of grass, from four to five feet high in places, and mixed with the Heracleum
and other rank weeds. ‘These flats seem to be more or less subject to flood, but the soil
must be very fertile. At occasional intervals fine groves of cottonwood are found, the
trees often of great height, and sometimes five feet in diameter. Further up, the valley
becomes more contracted, especially near the base of Double-headed Mountain, there
averaging probably not more than half a mile in width. The surface of the plateau or
plain above is formed of disintegrated material of the white silts, and which bears a
good growth of timber where fire has not passed.

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE CHARACTER OF THE SOILS.

“ In the southern exterior the cultivable land is limited to those tracts of the bottoms

and slopes of the numerous wide, trough-like valleys by which it i Gene which can

f- wry Nf D ¢ asne ¢ a F ¢ ay “py ors a

be successfully irrigated. Northward, at Quesnel (latitude 53°) and beyond, irrigation is

not necessary ; and in the lower part of the Nechaco basin the greatest unbroken spread

of low fertile country is met with.

“The soils of the interior may be broadly arranged in two classes So Soils CRON

“4 ee yf Pp ] 2 ap-celay ‘ " ther regions, 9.

composed of unmodified drift, representing the boulder-clay of some ot ae egions nee
Soils composed of modified or redistributed drift, modern alluvium, ete. The firs
class, though spoken of technically as ‘boulder-clay,” has not here the stiff, clayey

ae = F ] . ] < 7 ve isc “Tar © © i »

character very generally found in that formation elsewhere, but is composed, asa rule, of
a yellowish erey mixture of clay and sand, rather hard in consistency, through which
stones of all sizes are irregularly scattered. When exposed at the surface to the weather
jt becomes softened and broken down, and superficially mingled with vegetable matter.
Thouch its materials are in great part derived from the immediately underlying rocks, it

contains much foreign matter, by which any deficiencies in its composition arising from