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short distance, and by another low divide reached Williams creek which
it followed down to Richfield and Barkerville. The route was changed in
1885 and is now through Devil canyon above Stanley and along Slough
Creek valley and past Jack of Clubs lake to Williams creek. The old road
in the upper part of Lightning Creek valley is impassable except on foot.
A pack trail connects Barkerville with Keithley at the mouth of Keithley
creek, 30 miles to the southeast. T ravelling in the area, especially in the
higher parts, is comparatively easy and although the valley bottoms and
sides are mostly wooded and many of the old trails overgrown by vege-
tation, pack horses can be taken nearly everywhere.

GENERAL CHARACTER OF DISTRICT

The plateau region of British Columbia, of which the Barkerville area
is a part, occupies an intermontane belt, bounded by the Coast range on
the west, and by the Cariboo and other mountain ranges on the east. The
region is characterized by relatively flat-topped, inter-valley ridges, whose
summit levels maintain a general accordance within the smaller units of
area, but over larger areas show a gradual change from 6,500 down to
about 3,500 feet. The valley bottoms range in elevation from several
hundred to more than 4,500 feet above sea-level, and subdivide the uplands
into many series of irregular-shaped blocks.

The part of the belt of Interior Plateaux contained within the Barker-
ville map-area consists of an uplifted, highly dissected, plain-like surface
of erosion in which summit levels vary from 5,500 to 6,600 feet above sea-
level (See Plates I, II, and III). In the eastern part of the area, the moun-
tains rise to 6,500 feet, whereas along the western margin, in the vicinity
of Stanley, the summit levels do not exceed 5,500 feet. There is, conse-
quently, a general slope of the upland surface in a westerly or southwesterly
direction of approximately 75 feet per mile.

The relief on the upland surfaces is slight. Many of the plateau
remnants, almost entirely surrounded by deep valleys, show a striking
flatness characteristic of base-levelled country. Bald Mountain plateau,
for example, is remarkably flat and exhibits only minor irregularities of
surface. The upper parts of it are devoid of timber and are covered only
by thick meadow grass and a profusion of wild flowering plants. It is in
exceedingly marked topographic contrast with the serrated character of
the Cariboo range to the east. Here and there small residual eminences or
monadnocks rise above the gereral level of the uplands to heights of 300
feet, constituting the only survivals of the mountairs that existed in the
early part of the previous geographic cycle. Mount Agnes (6,500 feet),
mount Burdett (6,600 feet), and Two Sisters mountain (6,700 feet), are
the most striking illustrations of these monadnocks.

The topographic unconformities between the old plain-like surfaces
above and the newer valley topography below are usually sharply defined
and abrupt on the northern boundaries of the uplands. This abruptness is
due to the presence of many cirques, the headward slopes of which meet
the plateau tops with almost knife-edge boundaries. On the southern
parts of the uplands, the topographic breaks are not nearly so well defined.