Oregon and California, to the Thompson and Fraser
Rivers.

The distance from Breckenridge to the mouth of the Red River is
estimated at 450 miles. Thence through lake Winnepeg to the mouth of
Saskatchewan is 200 miles. Allowing for windings, the navigation by
that river may be set down at 1000 miles. Add 125 miles of land
carriage at one end of the route, and 200 at the other, making in the
whole a distance of about 2000 miles, from the starting point on the
Mississippi.

So fully impressed are some enterprising people of Minnesota with the
practicability and advantage of this route, that measures have been
already taken for building a steamer at Breckenridge, designed to
navigate the waters of the Red River, Lake Winnepeg, and Saskatchewan,
and to be ready for that purpose by the opening of next spring.
Meantime as the greater part of the route is within the territories of
the Hudson's Bay Company, steps have been taken to open a communication
with the Governor of that Company, and with other persons likely to
assist in putting a line of steamers on these waters.

At present various measures are being taken by the Canadians to shorten
this last route, and apparently with much success. They are making
arrangements for passing around the headwaters of Lake Superior, and
thus saving the detour in Minnesota. In a very short time it is said
that an easy and inexpensive means of communication will be formed
between Canada and the gold-fields; but, for the present, the Panama
route is _decidedly_ the preferable one for British emigrants.

CHAPTER FOUR.

DESCRIPTION OF COASTS, HARBOURS, ETCETERA.

The Pacific coast extends from Panama westward and northward, without
any remarkable irregularity in its outline, to the tropic of Cancer,
almost immediately under which is the entrance of the great Gulf of
California, separating the Peninsula of California from the main
continent on the east. From the southern extremity of this peninsula
the coast runs generally north-westward to Mount Saint Elias, a lofty
volcanic peak, rising from the shore of the ocean under the 60th
parallel, beyond which the continent stretches far westward, between the
Pacific on the south, and the Arctic Sea on the north, to its
termination at Cape Prince of Wales, in Behring's Straits, the passage
separating America from Asia. The part of the coast south of the 49th
degree of latitude (the American boundary) presents few indentations,
and