till on the summit they become little else than shrubs.
On a table land of this height, are found two lakes a few hundred yards apart; the waters of one of which flow down the valley just described, to the Columbia, and thence to the North Pacific; while those of the other, forming the Rocky Mountain River, run thence into the Athabasca, and thence through Peace River, the Great Slave Lake, {238} and McKenzie's River, into the Northern Arctic Ocean. The scenery around these lakes is highly interesting.[51] In the north, rises Mount Browne, sixteen thousand feet, and in the south, Mount Hooker, fifteen thousand seven hundred feet above the level of the sea. In the west, descends a vast tract of secondary mountains, bare and rocky, and noisy with tumbling avalanches. In the vales are groves of the winter-loving pine. In the east roll away undulations of barren heights beyond the range of sight. It seems to be the very citadel of desolation; where the god of the north wind elaborates his icy streams, and frosts, and blasts, in every season of the year.
Frazer's River rises between latitudes 55° and 56° north, and after a course of about one hundred and fifty miles, nearly due south, falls into the Straits de Fuca, under latitude 49° north. It is so much obstructed by rapids and falls, as to be of little value for purposes of navigation.[52] The face of the country about its mouth, andnorth it bends west into the Strait of Georgia. Sir Alexander Mackenzie was upon its upper waters in 1793. The whole course of the river was explored by Simon Fraser (1808), who until he reached the river's mouth supposed that he was upon the Columbia. See his "Journal" in L. R. Masson, Bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord Ouest (Quebec, 1889), i, pp. 155-221.—Ed.]
