Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 1.djvu/69

46 that is admittedly a "sketch map." This field alone, embracing from 20,000 to 25,000 square miles, the finest alpine country of the entire Continent, is sufficient to supply an alpine club with work, both scientific and athletic, for many years to come. In the Selkirks, north of Mt. Rogers and south of Mt. Purity, lie unknown tracts, with peaks, towers, pyramids and pinnacles, rising from wide snow-fields, that are unknown, unnamed, and unmapped, and have only been seen from Selkirk summits near the railway and from the more distant Rockies.

The Dominion Government is steadily pushing its topographical surveys into the unknown terrtiory, but these surveys are slow and costly and some adequate return must be in sight before they can be undertaken.

The books, etc., published by the authors named have attracted a great many people to the region, and, to meet the demand, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company have erected a number of hotels at beauty-spots along the line, which have been enlarged and modernized, until now the acme of luxury may be found in the heart of these wilds, where the many forces of Nature that contribute so largely to a civilized world are seen at work.

A list of the publishers of the accounts of the expeditions named above will be sent on application to the writer. It is strongly recommended that each members of the Club study these writings and thus obtain such elementary knowledge of our alpine tracts as at present exists, with a view to increasing that knowledge by making more extended explorations into the partly known districts, and organizing methods for reaching the parts that are quite unknown.