the valley narrows and swings in between the mountains from the south-
west.

Above Delta Creek for about 12 miles are some fairly level benches
with small grass-bordered lakes, but the whole country is destitute of
soil, and thence to the source in Thutade Lake bordering country is
rough, intervening area to the mountains being covered with benches or
ridges of washed boulders and gravel, evidently remains of a great glacial
talus which filled the valley. There is little soil on the hills, boulders
and a small quantity of decayed vegetable matter and moss, with poor,
scarce timber, chiefly spruce. The river, which leaves Thutade Lake in
a canyon 4 miles long with a fall 60 feet high at the end, with swift water
above and below, is 100 feet wide below the falls, 6 to 8 feet deep, with
current of about Io miles an hour. For some distance below the falls
the banks are sloping and there is a little bottom land. Then the banks
become precipitous and the trail leaves the river and crosses benches 300
feet above; thence for 9 miles traverses rough country to Canyon Creek,
after crossing which some bottom land occurs with some beaver meadows,
and after a few miles over boulder-strewn country runs over the bench
lands to Delta Creek.

Between Thutade Lake and McConnell Creek, a branch of Ingenika
River, on which in 1908 some placer-mining excitement occurred, and
where occasional mining has since been carried on in a small way, is a
low flat summit with some small lakes, some draining to Thutade Lake,
others to McConnell Creek.

INGENIKA RIVER.

Ingenika River, the main affluent of the Finlay, enters about 14 miles
by air-line above Grahame, 29 miles by river. It is crooked, full of
sloughs, about 120 yards wide at the mouth, with clear water and swift
current. The valley, fairly straight, runs a little north of west for 55
miles. To the foot of the first canyon, 80 miles up-stream, there is a
fall of about 500 feet, 375 feet in the upper 35 miles, and it is difficult to
pole canoes up owing to *
lining.

A characteristic of the Lower Ingenika Valley is the continuous line
of grassy and scarped terraces bounding the valley-bottom proper on
the north. Arable lands which extend to about 50 miles up aggregate
about 50,000 acres. The river is tortuous, wending from side to side of
the valley-bottom and forming many sloughs and islands. The bottoms
are excellent land, lightly timbered with poplar, alder, and pine and
patches of spruce bottom. The higher benches are mostly covered with
pine, the loam soil here inclining to sandy. Twenty miles up Swannell
River enters from the south. This stream bends sharply to the west
about 4 miles up and forks about 5 miles farther on. Between it and the
Ingenika a large area of bench land is included, only broken by an
occasional rocky ridge. Several lakes, meadows, and muskegs occur.
The bench land is generally sandy, however, and westward runs up into

sweepers ” and overhanging bushes preventing

Thirty-five.