British Columbia is one of the most
beautiful and richly endowed countries in the world. Here, in spite
of northern latitudes, the warm airs coming up from the Pacific Ocean
act somewhat in the same way as the Gulf Stream on north-west Europe,
and favour the growth of magnificent forests.
All this north-western part of British Columbia is very mountainous,
and the rocks are rich in minerals, especially gold in the Fraser and
Columbia Rivers, far north in the upper valley of the Yukon, and
copper and coal in Vancouver Island.
The rainfall in British Columbia is considerable, and the
flora--trees, plants, ferns--richer than anywhere else in North
America, with many resemblances to the trees and plants of Japan and
northern China. In British Columbia more than in any other part of the
world are found the noblest developments of the pines, firs, and
junipers (_Coniferae_).
The coast rivers swarm with salmon, and perhaps because of the
abundance of sea fish close in shore there have been developed in the
course of ages those remarkable aquatic mammals, the sea lions or fur
seals (_Otaria_), whose relationship to the true seals is a very
distant one. On the Alaskan coasts and islands is _Otaria ursina_, the
creature which provides the sealskin fur of commerce. There is also
the much larger sea lion (_Otaria stelleri_), on the coasts of British
Columbia and Vancouver Island.
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