their first expedition to Mt. Sir Donald. "The path was getting steep and the pack seemed to need braeing up. Some idea of a similar nature must have crossed the mind of the cayuse, for without the slightest warning, he took a sudden fit of back-jumping, tumbled down, rolled over and over down the slope and when our goods were thoroughly smashed up and scattered to the winds, he got on his legs and shook himself with apparent satisfaction. It was really too horrible—I rushed to my unfortunate knapsack. If the man from Donald had been with us I think I'd have given him permission to swear for five minutes without stopping and so vicariously relieve my over-burdened mind. A sextant, fortunately not a new one, was smashed to bits. I picked up its little ivory scale all by itself on a bush. A thermometer, which had been carefully tested at Kew, was in shivers. I could not look at my photographic plates then, and concluded they were all broken. Fortunately, however, they escaped; the rifle, too, came off all right. But oh! what fools we felt at having been taken in by the deceitful calm of that cayuse's temper. We all made good resolutions on the spot, and kept them so far as never again to trust any instrument to the tender mercy of a horse."
The Alpine Club, England, and The Swiss Alpine Club (1890).—In this year Mr. Harold W. Topham, of the English Club, and Messrs. Emil Huber and Karl Sulzer of the Swiss Club, visited the Selkirks. They joined forces and added to the number Mr. Harold E. Forster, a gentleman now residing near Wilmer on the Upper Columbia River. Together and in couples they made a series of expeditions from Glacier House, their permanent base. The following first ascents are recorded to their credit: Mts. Fox and Donkin by Topham; Mt. Selwyn (named Mt. Deville by Green and subsequently changed) by Topham and Forster; Mts. Purity and Sugar Loaf by Huber, Topham and Forster; Mts. Sir Donald and Uto Peak by Huber and Sulzer; and Swiss Peak by Sulzer.
In a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society (Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, Vol. XIII. 1891) Topham remarks: "The glaciers of the Selkirks, though comparatively small, are very numerous and the area which is covered with ice is large in proportion to that which is covered with snow. Where in Switzerland we would expect to find patches of snow, in the Selkirks we may expect to find ice. The great snow-fall in the Selkirks may perhaps explain this. The pressure exerted upon the lower layers of the snow by the great depth of the snow which lies above them tends to consolidate and make into ice these lower layers."
"The great drawback to travelling in the range is the thickness of vegetation at the bottom of the valleys and the difficulty of procuring men capable of acting as porters over a mountain country." (For full account of these expeditions see '"The Selkirk Range" by A. O. Wlieeler.)
The Appalachian Mountain Club of Boston (1890).—The first representative of the Appalachian Mountain Club to visit the Selkirks was Professor Chas E. Fay, of Tufts College, Mass. He arrived immediately after the departure of Messrs. Huber and Sulzer and was so much impressed with the possibilities spread out before him that on his return he seems to have laid them vigorously before his club; for from 1893 on, most of the recorded expeditions and climbs are by
