Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 1.djvu/62

Rh more purely achæan and consists chiefly of grey gneisses, varying from massive to schistose, and highly micaceous.

The Coast range, reaching into the far northland, is cut and intersected by many inlets from the sea. These inlets are often narrow and enclosed by precipitous sides of rock, over which cascades fall hundreds of feet to tide-water below. The steeps are clad with forests of tropical luxuriance, through which it is only with great difficulty a passage can be forced, and giant trees of fir, cedar and balsam grow nearly to the summits of the mountains. As you proceed northward, the timber-covering becomes more scant until, at length, it is found only at the bottom of the lower valleys.

There can be little doubt that the characteristics outlined above, furnish not only a worthy field for an alpine organization, but a field of immense magnitude, and one that will continually offer something new for many years to come. It is true we have not the great height of other mountain systems of the world. Mt. Blanc, the giant of the European Alps, is 15,780 feet above the sea; Mt. Tacoma, in Washington, is 14,526 feet; Popocatapetl and Orizaba, in Mexico, are 17,500 and 18,300 feet; Mt. McKinley, in Alaska, is said, by a recent explorer, to be 20,300 feet, and the Himalayas reach the enormous altitude of 29,000 feet. Against all this, except in a few isolated cases—Mt. Logan, 19,500; Mt. Hubbard, 16,400; Mt. Vancouver, 15,600; Mt. Augusta, 14,900, and others in the Yukon Territory, with Mt. Robson, 13,700, and Mt. Columbia, 12,700, in British Columbia,—we can only boast a general altitude of 10,000 to 12,000 feet; but, for primeval forests, beauty of glaciers and labyrinthine organization, the Rockies of Canada cannot be surpassed.

Up to the completion of the Canadian Pacific railway in 1885, there was no thought of mountaineering