The mention of the effect of ice on the rails recalls a story told by Colonel Bulkley, when the latter was chief of the Russo‐American Telegraph Expedition. The colonel during the civil war in the States was at the head of a constructing party, who built temporary lines of telegraph to follow the advancing northern army. The driver of a train which passed through the district in which they were engaged had been ordered to stop nightly and pick the party up, but one night neglected to do so, and the weary constructors had to tramp a dozen miles in the dark to the nearest village. The men naturally determined that this should not occur again, and so next morning armed themselves with several boxes of bar soap. What for? To soap the rails! Colonel Bulkley tells gleefully how they rubbed it on for about a quarter of a mile, how the train arrived at the place, and after gliding on a certain distance, from the momentum it had acquired, came nearly to a standstill, and how the men jumped on and told the joke to everybody. The engineer next day did not forget to remember them. “Some writers strongly advise the traveller to make a halt at Sherman station,” says Mr. Rae. “The inducements held out to him are mountain scenery, invigorating air, fishing and hunting. A sojourn among the peaks of the Rocky Mountains has the attraction of novelty to recommend it. Life there must be, in every sense of the word, a new sensation. But some sensations are undesirable, notwithstanding their undoubted freshness. That splendid trout swarm in the streams near Sherman admits of no dispute. Yet the disciple of Isaak Walton should not be tempted to indulge rashly in his harmless and charming sport. It is delightful to hook large fish; but it is less agreeable to be pierced through by arrows. Now, the latter contingency is among the probabilities which must be taken into consideration. A few weeks prior to my journey, one of the conductors of the train by which I travelled, learned, by practical experience, that fishing among the Rocky Mountains has palpable and painful drawbacks. Having taken a few days’ holiday, he went forth, fishing‐rod in hand, to amuse himself. While whipping the stream in the innocence of his heart, he was startled to find himself made the target for arrows shot by wild Indians. He sought safety in flight, and recovered from his wounds, to the surprise as much as to the gratification of his friends. His story did not render me desirous of sharing his fate.”