canoes, could not be less than six thousand feet above the sea; but how high the mountains rose above this point the narrative does not inform us, and hardly gives us any data to decide. The central chain, as usual, is marked in the map as highest, and covered with snow during the whole year. The latitude is between forty-five and forty-seven degrees; and between these parallels, in Europe, the lower limit of perpetual congelation is fixed at from nine to ten thousand feet above the level of the sea; and it can hardly be supposed that the summits of this snowy range were less than eight thousand five hundred or nine thousand feet high, making a reasonable allowance for the greater coldness of the American continent. Captain Clarke allows this central range to be sixty miles across, and that the shortest road across the different ranges is at least one hundred and forty miles, besides two hundred miles more, before we can reach a navigable river. In their first passage across these tremendous mountains, the American party suffered every thing which hunger, cold, and fatigue, could impose, during three weeks. They were compelled to melt the snow for their portable soup; many of their horses (which they used for conveying their baggage, or for riding,) were foundered by falls from precipices; the men became feeble through excessive toil, and sickly from want of food, as there are no wild animals in these inhospitable regions; and, but for an occasional meal of horse flesh, the whole party must have perished. In returning home from the mouth of the Columbia, their state was little better. Having again come in sight of the mountains, in the middle of May, they attempted to pass them but in vain, on account of the snow, which lay from six to ten feet deep, and were obliged to return, and rest in the plains to the twenty-fourth of June. These mountains are, therefore, a far more formidable barrier to the Pacific, than the Alleghanies to the back country, and can be passed with great difficulty only for three months in the year, namely, from the latter end of June to the latter end of September.