If we may credit the Indians, each paw occupies the bear for one moon, (a month) and the task accomplished, he turns on the other side and begins to suck the second, and so an with the rest.
I will here mention, en passant, that all the hunters and Indians remark that it is a very uncommon incident for a female bear to be killed when with young, and notwithstanding they are killed in all seasons of the year. Where they go -what becomes of them during the period they carry their young -is a problem yet to be solved by our mountain hunters.
When emigration, accompanied by industry, the arts and sciences, shall have penetrated into the numberless valleys of the Rocky Mountains, the source of the Columbia will prove a very important point. The climate is delightful; the extremes of beat and cold are seldom known. The snow disappears as fast as it falls; the laborious hand that would till these valleys would be repaid 'a hundredfold. Innumerable herds could graze throughout the year an these mead
,vs, where the sources and streams nurture a perpetual freshness and abundance. The hillocks and declivities of the mountains are generally studded with inexhaustible forests, in which the larch tree, pine of different species, cedar and cypress abound.
In the plain between the two lakes are beautiful springs, whose waters have reunited and formed a massive rock of soft sandy stone, which has the appearance of an immense congealed or petrified cascade. Their waters are soft and pellucid; and of the same temperature as the milk just drawn from the cow. The description given by Chandler of the famous fountain of Pambuk Kalessi, or the ancient HierapcJis of Asia Minor, in the valley of Meander, and of which Alalte. Brun makes mention, might be literally applied to the warm springs at the source of the Columbia. The prospect unfolded to our view was so wonderful, that an attempt to give even a faint idea of it would savor of romance, without 32