ARTICLE XLIV.-Abridged Sketch of the Life of Mr. David Douglas, Botanist, with a few details of his travels and discoveries.

(Continued from last Number.)

After the misfortune recorded in our last, Douglas pursued his way to Fort Vancouver by the same route by which he had come, botanizing still more sedulously than ever, in order to make up as far as possible for his recent heavy loss. In October, he left the Columbia, as it afterwards unfortunately proved, for the last time. A land where his discoveries had furnished him frequently with the brightest moments of the purest joy, and where also his losses had caused him days of the most poignant sorrow and regret. He arrived at Waohoo on the 23rd December. On the 31st he was at Hawaii, on which stand the great volcanic peaks. His account of the ascent of these is most interesting and we angle from his journal as much as our limits and the patience of readers may be supposed to render admissible.

After all preliminary preparations, and passing two days with his party drenched with rain on the skirts of Mouna Kuah, we find him on the 9th January 1834, recovering from the effects of the weather, and partaking of a young wild bull, shot by a person who had joined them. The weather on the following day CAN. NAT.

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still improving, he cleared the wooded region, but night coming on quickly returned to its edge and encamped. All were on foot early on the 11th. After passing the last plants to be seen on the ascent, viz: a gigantic composite (Argyrophyton Douglasii) and a small Juncus he begins his scientific remarks.

"The great difference produced on vegetation by the agitated and volcanic state of the mountain is very distinctly marked. Here there is no line betwen the phenogamous and cryptogamous plants, but the limits of vegetation itself are defined with the greatest exactness, and the species do not gradually diminish in number and stature, as is generally the case on such high elevations."

"The line of what may be called the woody-country, at the upper verge of which the barometer expresses 21.450 inches, thermometer 46° at 2 P. M., is where we immediately enter on a region of broken and uneven ground, with here and there lumps of lava rising above the general declivity to a height of three hundred to four hundred feet, intersected by deep chasms, which shew the course of the lava when in a state of fluidity. This portion of the mountain is highly picturesque and sublime. Three kinds of timber of small growth are scattered over the low knolls, with one species of Rubus and Vaccinium, the genus Fragaria, and a few Graminia, Filices, and some alpine species. This region extends to bar. 20.020 in., air 40°, dew point 30°. There is a third region, which reaches to the place where we encamped yesterday, and seems to be the great rise or spring of the lava, the upper part of which at the foot of the first extinct peak is bar. 20.010 in., air 39°.”

"12th. At six o'clock, accompanied by three Islanders, and two Americans, I started for the summit of the mountains; bar. at that hour indicated 20.000 inches, therm. 24°; hygr. 20°; and a keen west wind was blowing off the mountain, which was felt severely by us all, and especially by the natives, whom it was necessary to protect with additional blankets and great coats. We passed over about five miles of gentle ascent, consisting of large blocks of lava, sand, scoriæ, and ashes, of every size, shape and color, demonstrating all the gradations of calcination, from the mildest to the most intense. This may be termed the table land or platform, where spring the great rent holes of the subterranean fire or numerous volcanoes. The general appearance is that of the channel of an immense river heaved up. In some places the

round boulders of lava are so regularly placed, and the sand is so washed in around them, as to give the appearance of a causeway, while in others, the lava seems to have run like a stream. We commenced the ascent of the great peak at nine o'clock, on the N. E. side, over a ridge of tremendously rugged lava, four hundred and seventy feet high, preferring this course to the very steep ascent of the south side, which consists entirely of lava, ashes, and scoriæ, and we gained the summit soon after ten. Though exhausted with fatigue before leaving the table land, and much tried by the increasing cold, yet such was my ardent desire to reach the top, that the last portion of the way seemed the easiest. This is the loftiest of the chimneys: a lengthened ridge of two hundred and twenty one yards two feet running nearly straight N. W. To the north, four feet below the extreme summit of the peak, the barometer was instantly suspended, the cistern being exactly below, and when the mercury had acquired the temperature of the circumambient air, the following register was entered at 11 h. 20 m.; bar. 18.362 in.; air 33°; hygr. 0" 5. At 12 o'clock the horizon displayed some snowy clouds; until this period the view was sublime to the greatest degree, but now every appearance of a mountain storm come on. The whole of the low S. E. point of the island was throughout the day covered like a vast plain of snow with clouds. The same thermometer laid on the bare lava, and exposed to the wind at an angle of 27° expressed at first 37° and afterwards at 12 o'clock 41°, though when held in the hand, exposed to the sun, it did not rise at all. It may well be conjectured that such an immense mass of heating material, combined with the influence of internal fire, and taken in connexion with the insular position of Mouna Kuah, surrounded by an immense ocean of water, will have the effect of raising the snow line considerably: except on the northern declivity, or where sheltered by large blocks of lava, there was no snow to be seen: even on the top of the cairn where the barometer was fixed, there were only a few handsful. One thing struck me as curious, the apparent non-diminution of sound, not as respects the rapidity of its transmission, which is, of course, subject to a well known law. Certain it is, that on mountains of inferior elevation, whose summits are clothed with perpetual snow and ice, we find it needful to roar into one another's ears, and the firing of a gun, at a short distance, does not disturb the timid antelope on the high snowy peaks of N. W. America. Snow is doubtless a non-con