supported by a separate stem, and as many as from three to eighteen or twenty in a clump: the berry is ovate, with one of its extremities attached to a peduncle, where it is to a small degree concave, the wood of which is excessively hard. The natives make their wedges of this wood, in splitting their boards, their firewood, and in hollowing out their canoes; the wedge when driven into solid dry pine, receives not the slightest injury. Our party made use of it likewise for wedges and axe-handles. The fruit is exceedingly acid, and resembles the flavour of the wild crab. The pericarp of the berry contains a soft pulpy substance, divided into four cells, each containing a single seed; the outer coat of the pericarp, is a thin, smooth, though firm and tough pellicle. The plant called sacacommis by the Canadian traders, derives its name from this circumstance, that the clerks of the trading companies are generally very fond of smoking its leaves, which they carry about with them in a small bag. It grows generally in an open piny woodland country, or on its borders. We found this berry in the prairies bordering on the Rocky mountains, or in the more open woodlands. It is indiscriminately the growth of a very rich or a very poor soil, and is found in the same abundance in both. The natives on the western side of the Rocky mountains are very fond of this berry, although to us it was a very tasteless and insipid fruit: the shrub is an evergreen, and retains its verdure in the same perfection the whole season round. How ever inclement the climate, the root puts forth a great number of stems which separate near the surface of the ground; each stem from the size of a small quill to that of a man's finger: these are much branched, the branches forming an acute angle with the stem, and all more properly procumbent than creeping: although it sometimes puts forth radicles from the stems and branches, which strike obliquely into the ground: these radicles are by no means general or equable in their distances from each other, nor do they appear calculated to furnish nutriment to the plant: the bark is formed of several layers of a smooth, thin, brittle and reddish substance easily separated from the stem: the leaves with respect to their position are scattered, yet closely arranged, and particularly near the extremities of the twigs : the leaf is about three fourths of an inch in length; oval, pointed and obtuse; of a deep green, slightly grooved; and the footstalk is of proportionable length: the berry is attached in an irregular manner to the small boughs among the leaves, and always supported by separate, small and short peduncles: the insertion produces a slight concavity in the berry, while its opposite side is slightly convex. The outer coat of the pericarp is a thin, firm, tough pellicle: the inner coat consists of a dry, mealy powder, of a yellowish white colour, enveloping from four to six large, light brown seeds: the colour of the fruit is a fine scarlet: the natives eat these berries without any preparation: the fruit ripens in September, and remains on the bushes bushes all winter unaffected by the frost they are sometimes gathered and hung in the lodges in bags, where they are dried without further trouble. : 6. The deep purple berry, like the huckleberry, terminates bluntly, and has a cap or cover at the end the berries are attached separately to the sides of the boughs by a short stem, hanging underneath, and they often grow very near each other, on the same bough the berry separates very easily from the stem; the leaves adhere closely the shrub rises to the height of six or eight feet, and sometimes grows on high lands, but more frequently on low marshy grounds: the shrub is an evergreen, and about ten inches in circumference, divides into many irreglar branches, and seldom more than one stem springs from one root, although they associate very thickly: the bark is somewhat rough and of a reddish brown colour: the wood is very hard the leaves are alternate and attached by a short footstalk to the horizontal sides : of the boughs: the form is a long oval, rather more acute towards the apex than at the point of insertion its margin slightly serrate, its sides collapsing, thick, firm, smooth, and glossy: the under surface is of a pale or whitish green, and the upper of a fine deep green. This beautiful shrub retains its verdure throughout the year, and is more peculiarly beautiful in winter. The natives sometimes eat the berries without preparation sometimes they dry them in the sun, and at others in their sweating kilns: they very frequently pound them, and bake them in large loaves, weighing from ten to fifteen pounds: the bread keeps very well for one season, and retains its juices better by this mode of preparation than any other: this bread when broken is stirred in cold water, until it acquires the consistency of soup, and then eaten. TREES. The trees of a larger growth are very abundant; the whole neighbourhood of the coast is supplied with great quantities of excellent timber. The predominating growth is the fir, of which we have seen several species. There is one singular circumstance attending all the pine of this country, which is, that when consumed it yields not the slightest particle of ashes. The first species grows to an immense size, and is very commonly twentyseven feet in circumference, six feet above the earth's surface: they rise to the height of two hundred and thirty feet, and one hundred and twenty of that height without a limb. We have often found them thirty-six feet in circumference. One of our party measured one, and found it to be forty-two feet in circumference, at a point beyond the reach of an ordinary man. This trunk for the distance of two hundred feet was destitute of limbs: this tree was perfectly sound, and at a moderate calculation, its size may be estimated at three hundred feet. The timber is throughout, and rives better than any other species; the bark scales off in flakes irregularly round, and of a reddish brown colour, particularly the younger growth: the trunk is simple, branching, and not very proliferous. The leaf is acerose, one tenth of an inch in width, and three fourths in length, firm, stiff, and acuminate. It is triangular, a little declining, thickly scattered on all sides of the bough, and springs from small triangular pedestals of soft, spongy, elastic bark at the junction of the boughs. The budscales continue to encircle their respective twigs for several years. Captain Lewis has counted as many as the growth of four years beyond the scales; it yields but little rosin, and we have never been able to discover the cone, although we have felled several. The second is a much more common species, and constitutes at least one half of the timber in this neighbourhood. It seems to resemble a spruce, rising from one hundred and sixty to one hundred and eighty feet, is from four to six in diameter, straight, round, and regularly tapering. The bark is thin, of a dark colour, much divided in small longitudinal interstices: the bark of the boughs and young trees is somewhat smooth, but not equal to the balsam fir: the wood is white, very soft, but difficult to rive the trunk is a simple, branching, and diffuse stem, not so proliferous as the pines and firs usually are. It puts forth buds from the sides of the small boughs, as well as from their extremities: the stem terminates like the cedar, in a slender pointed top the leaves are petiolate, the footstalks short, acerose, rather more than half a line in width, and very unequal in length; the greatest length seldom ex ceeds one inch, while other leaves intermixed on every bough, do not exceed a quarter of an inch. The leaf has a small longitudinal channel on the upper disk, which is of a deep and glossy green, while the under disk is of a whitish green only: it yields but little rosin. What is remarkable, the cone is not longer than the end of a man's thumb; it is soft, flexible, of an ovate form, and produced at the ends of the small twigs. The third species resembles in all points, the Canadian balsam fir. It grows from two and a half to four feet in diameter, and rises to the height of eighty or an hundred feet. The stem is simple, branching, and proliferous its leaves are sessile, acerous, one eighth of an inch in length, and one sixteenth in width, thickly scattered on the twigs, and adhere to the three under sides only; gibbous, a little declining, obtusely pointed, soft, and flexible. The upper disk is longitudinally marked with a slight channel, of a deep, glossy, green; the under of a pale green and not glossy. This tree affords in considerable quantities, a fine deep aromatic balsam, resembling the balsam of Canada in taste and appearance. The small pistils filled, rise like a blister on the trunk and the branches. The bark that envelops these pistils, is soft and easily punctured: the general appearance of the bark is dark and smooth: but not so remarkable for that quality as the white pine of our country. The wood is white and soft. The fourth species in size resembles the second. The stem is simple, simple, branching, ascending, and proliferous; the bark is of a red dish dark brown, and thicker than that of the third species, divided by small longitudinal interstices, not so much magnified as in the second species. The relative position of the leaves resembles those of the balsam fir, excepting that they are only twothirds the width, and little more than half the length, and that the upper disk is not so green and glossy. The wood yields no balsam, and but little rosin. The wood is white and tough although rather porous. : The fifth species in size resembles the second, and has a trunk simple, branching, and proliferous. The bark is of a thin dark brown, divided longitudinally by interstices, and scaling off in thin rolling flakes. It yields but little balsam: two-thirds of the diameter of the trunk in the centre presents a reddish white; the remainder is white, porous, and tough the twigs are much longer and more slender than in either of the other species; the leaves are acerose, one-twentieth of an inch in width, and one inch in length; sessile, inserted on all sides of the bough, straight, and obliquely pointing towards the extremities. The upper disk has a small longitudinal channel, and is of a deep green, and not so glossy as the balsam fir. The under disk is of a pale green. We have seen a species of this fir on low marshy grounds, resembling in all points the foregoing, except that it branches more diffusively. This tree is generally thirty feet in height, and two in diameter. The diffu sion of its branches may result from its open situation, as it seldom grows in the neighbourhood of another tree. The cone is two and a half inches in length, and three and three quarters in its greatest circumference. It tapers regularly to a point, and is formed of imbricated scales, of a bluntly rounded form. A thin leaf is inserted in the pith of the cone, which overlays the centre of, and extends half an inch beyond the point of each scale. The sixth species does not differ from what is usually denominated the white pine in Virginia. The unusual length of the cone seems to constitute the only difference. It is sometimes sixteen or eighteen inches in length, and is about four in circumference. It grows on the north side of the Columbia, near the ocean. The seventh, and last species, grows in low grounds, and in places frequently overflown by the tide, seldom rising higher than thirty-five feet, and not more than from two and a half to four in diameter: the stem is simple, branching, and proliferous: the bark resembles that of the first species, but more rugged: the leaves are acerose, two-tenths of an inch in width, three-fourths in length, firm, stiff, and a little acuminated: they end in short pointed tendrils, gibbous, and thickly scattered on all sides of the branch, though they adhere to the three under sides only: those inserted on the under side incline sidewise, with upward points, presenting the leaf in the shape of a sithe: the others are pointing upwards, sessile, and like those of the first species, grow from from the small triangular pedestals, of a bark, spongy, soft, and elastic. The under disk is of a deep glossy green, the other of a pale whitish green: the boughs retain the leaves of a six years growth: the bud scales resemble those of the first species: the cone is of an ovate figure, three and a half inches in length, and three in circumference, thickest in the middle, and tapering and terminating in two obtuse points it is composed of small, flexible scales, imbricated, and of a reddish brown colour. Each of these scales covers two small seeds, and is itself covered in the centre by a small, thin, inferior scale, acutely pointed: these scales proceed from the sides of the bough, as well as from its extremities. It was nowhere seen above the Wappatoo. The stem of the black alder arrives to a great size. It is simple, branching, and diffuse the bark is smooth, of a light colour, with white spreading spots, resembling those of the beech the leaf, fructification, &c. resemble precisely those of the common alder of our country: the shrubs grow separately from different roots, and not in clusters, like those of the United States. The black alder does not cast its leaf until the first of December. It is sometimes found growing to the height of xty or seventy feet, and is from two to four in diameter. There is a tree common to the Columbia river, below the entrance of Cataract river, when divested of its foliage, much resembling the ash. The trunk is simple, branching, and diffuse: the leaf is petiolate, plain, divided : by four deep lines, resembling those of the palm, and considerably lobate the lobes terminate in from three to five angular points, and their margins are indented with irregular and somewhat circular incisures: the petiole is cylindrical, smooth, and seven inches long; the leaf itself eight inches in length, and twelve in breadth: this tree is frequently three feet in diameter, and rises from forty to fifty feet: the fruit is a winged seed, somewhat resembling that of the maple. In the same part of the country there is also another growth, resembling the white maple, though much smaller, and is sel dom to be seen of more than six or seven inches in diameter. These trees grow in clusters, from fifteen to twenty feet in height, from the same bed of roots, spreading and leaning outwards: the twigs are long and slender, the stem simple and branching, the bark, in colour, resembling the white maple, the leaf is petiolate, plain, scattered, nearly cir cular, with acute, angular incisures round the margin, of an inch in length, and from six to eight in number: the acute angular points so formed, are crenate, three inches in length and four in width: the petiole is cylindric, smooth, and an inch and a quarter in length, and the fruit is not known. The undergrowth consists of honeysuckles, alder, seven bark or nine bark, huckleberry, a shrub like the quillwood, a plant like the mountain-holly, a green briar, the fern. 1. The honeysuckle common to the United States we found in this neighbourhood |