sizes and colors, the hawthorn, the raspberry, the wild cherry and the service-berry. Currants, white, red, black and yellow, grow everywhere along the mountains. The best are found on the plains, where they are exposed to be ripened by the sun. I have classed the wild cherry and the service-berry among shrubs, because they are generally of low growth and do not deserve the name of trees. The service-berry (cornier) grows on a real shrub, and is a delicious fruit, called by travelers the mountain pear, though it bears no resemblance to the pear, its size being that of a common cherry. The mountain cherry differs much from the European cherry. The fruit hangs in clusters around the branches, and is smaller than the wild cherry, whilst its taste and color and the form of the leaves are nearly the same as those of the latter. Cherries and service-berries constitute a great portion of the Indian's food whilst the season lasts, and they are dried by them to serve for food in the winter. I may perhaps mention other fruits, plants and roots, that grow spontaneously in different parts of the Far West, and are used as food by the Indians for want of better sustenance.
Flax is very common in the valleys between the mountains. What must appear singular is that the root of it is so fruitful that it will produce new stems for a number of years. We examined one of them, and found attached to it about thirty stems, which had sprung from it in former years. Hemp is also found, but in very small quantities. TREES. There are but few species of trees in the regions which we lately passed. Scarcely any forests are found [except] on the banks of rivers, for which I have already
assigned a reason. On the plains we find bushes, and now and then the willow, the alder, the wax tree, the cottonwood or white poplar, whose bark is used for horse feed in winter, and the aspen, whose leaves are always trembling. Some Canadians have conceived a very superstitious idea
of this tree. They say that of its wood the cross was made on which our Savior was nailed, and that since the time