Palliser Expedition: "As late as 1853 there was a communication at two seasons by this boat (Jasper House) with the Columbia district. In March, when the snow had acquired a crust, the express, with letters and accounts, started from Edmonton and continued on to the boat encampment, to which place, by the time they arrived, owing to the earlier spring on the west side of the mountain, the brigade of boats had ascended from Vancouver. The mail from the western department was then exchanged, and taken back to Edmonton, and thence to Norway House, along with the Jasper furs.

"The second time of communication was in the autumn, after the Saskatchewan brigade returned to Edmonton in the beginning of September, upon which the officers and men bound for the western department, taking with them the subsidy of otter skins that the Company annually paid the Russian Government for the rent of the N. W. coast, crossed the portage to Fort Assiniboine, then ascended the Athabasca in boats to Jasper House, with pack-horses, reached the boat encampment, and then descended the Columbia to Vancouver, where they arrived generally about the 1st of November. The journey from York Factory or Hudson's Bay to the Pacific coast by this route generally occupied three and a half months, and involved an amount of hardship and toil that cannot be appreciated by those who have not seen boat travelling in these territories."

Nearly every individual who has left a descriptive record of the Athabaska Pass seems to have indulged in speculation as to the altitude of the nearby mountains. Thus we find Thompson stating, "To ascertain the height of the Rocky Mountains above the level of the Ocean had long occupied my attention, but without any satisfaction to myself. At the greatest elevation of the passage. across the Mountains by the Athabaska River, the point by boiling water gave 11,000 feet, and the peaks of the Mountains are full 7000 feet above this passage, and the general height may be taken at 18,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean."

Washington Irving2 has preserved a letter confirming Thompson's idea of great elevation at the pass:

"COLUMBIA COLLEGE, NEW YORK.
"February 23, 1836.

"DEAR SIR: In compliance with your request, I have to communicate some facts in relation to the heights of the Rocky Mountains and the sources whence I obtained the information.

2 Astoria, Washington Irving (Philadelphia, 1836), vol. ii, p. 276. Renwick was at this time Professor of Chemistry and Physics at Columbia.

"In conversation with Simon M'Gillivray, Esq., a partner of the North-West Company, he stated to me his impression, that the mountains in the vicinity of the route pursued by the traders of that company were nearly as high as the Himalayas. He had himself crossed by this route, seen the snowy summits of the peaks and experienced a degree of cold which required a spirit thermometer to indicate it. His authority for the estimation of the heights was a gentleman who had been employed for several years as surveyor of that company. This conversation occurred about sixteen years. hence.

"A year or two afterwards, I had the pleasure of dining at Major Delafield's with Mr. Thompson, the gentleman referred to by Mr. M'Gillivray. I inquired of him in relation to the circumstances mentioned by Mr. M'Gillivray, and he stated, that by joint means of the barometer and trigonometric measurements, he had discovered the height of one of the mountains to be about twentyfive thousand feet, and there were others of nearly the same height in the vicinity.

"I am, dear sir,

"Yours truly,

"JAMES RENWICK.

"To W. IRVING, ESQ."

3

In Thompson's narrative of his crossing of Athabaska Pass, he mentions that, "The altitude of this place above the level of the Ocean, by the point of boiling water is computed to be eleven thousand feet (Sir George Simpson)." This has given rise to the idea that Thompson later obtained certain of his figures from Sir George Simpson, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, who crossed the pass in 1825. In none of the literature consulted, however, is there the slightest evidence that Thompson and Simpson ever met.

There was another gentleman named Simpson who possibly had something to do with the erroneous figures. At least, Thomas Drummond, Assistant Naturalist to the Second Franklin Expedition, who spent the winter 1825-26 near Jasper House, tells us in his journal: "The kindness of Lieut, Simpson, R. N., who was at that

'Thompson's Narrative of his Explorations in Western America, 17841812 (The Champlain Society. Toronto, 1916), p. 445 et seq.

"Sketch of a Journey to the Rocky Mountains and to the Columbia River in North America," Thomas Drummond, Assistant Naturalist to the Second Land Arctic Exploring Expedition, under the command of Sir John Franklin, R. N.-in Hooker's Botanical Miscellany, vol. i, p. 190.

time surveying the country, gave me the opportunity of ascertaining the latitude of the commencement and termination of the Rocky Mountains Portage. . . . The height of one of the mountains, taken at the commencement of the Portage, Lieut. Simpson reckons at 5900 feet above its apparent base, and he thinks that the altitude of the Rocky Mountains may be stated at about 16,000 feet above the sea."

From the letter to Washington Irving, quoted above, it may be calculated that Thompson made his statement to Renwick about 1822; and, if the material be reliable, it would indicate that Thompson was responsible for the exaggerated altitudes. At least this dating of his statement precedes the crossing of the pass by Sir George Simpson.

Franchère, a French-Canadian returning from the Astoria post in 1814, is more conservative and comes nearer the truth: "The geographer Pinkerton is assuredly mistaken when he gives these mountains an elevation of but three thousand feet above the level of the sea; from my own observations I would not hesitate to give them six thousand; we attained, in crossing them, an elevation probably of fifteen hundred feet above the valleys, and were not, perhaps, nearer than half way of their total height, while the valleys themselves must be considerably elevated above the level of the Facific, considering the prodigious number of rapids and falls which are met with in the Columbia, from the first falls to Canoe river."

Ross Cox, likewise a former clerk at Astoria, crossed the pass in 1817, putting his opinion emphatically: "The height of the Rocky Mountains varies considerably. The table land which we crossed I should take to be about 11,000 feet above the level of the sea. From the immense number of rapids we had to pass in ascending the Columbia, and its precipitous bed above the lakes, I consider that at their base the mountains cannot be much under 8000 feet above the level of the Pacific; and from the valley of Canoe River to the level parts of the height of land cannot be less than 3000 feet, but the actual altitude of their highest summits must be much greater. They

'Voyage à la côte du Nord-Ouest de l'Amérique Septentrionale (Montreal, 1820. English translation and edition by J. V. Huntington, Narrative of a Voyage to the North-West Coast of America, Gabriel Franchère. Redfield. New York, 1854), p. 299.

Adventures on the Columbia River, Ross Cox (J. & J. Harper. New York, 1832), p. 255.