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290 ...gigantic mole-hills, but which in reality are the heaps of earth the miners have thrown up in prospecting, that is examining the ground for auriferous veins, which is done by digging holes ten or twelve feet deep. It will be a long time before the forest appears again, for at this altitude it was composed entirely of pine & I could nowhere, in exposed places, find any young trees. I could find plenty of little seedlings, but they were dead or dying; I supposed from their inability to bear without protection the wind, or the cold, or the drought. I saw some magnificent trees of, I believe, a kind of spruce, & a kind of silver fir, on the hills from which it would have been difficult to have removed them,is cut down. They were of great height, & very straight, though of course nothing like what are heard of as growing on the western slopes, & down to the Pacific coast.On the lower hills I saw Abundance of a white barked poplar, of a kind of alder, of birch, & of willow. Gooseberry bushes in places covered the ground. I heard that currants, raspberries, blueberries, & some other small edible fruit were to be found in equal plenty. I saw large spates on the hillside, where the undergrowth was chiefly Berber's aquifolium. In the valleys of the outer range there was a great deal of the small cactus I had see in the Plains unclear the surface for miles together. This species must be capable of bearing very severe cold, for 20 degrees below zero is a point the is occasionally reached here.