34        :TTHE QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS.
frying-pan, and when dried, threaded with a spruce wick, and stuck in a bottle, burns like a candle. A bunch of them touched to the fire furnish a sufficient torch. They exist in greatest numbers, and schools of them coming in from the sea fill the river and inlets from bank to bank. The natives rake, shovel, dip, and seine -them by canoe-loads, and either dry them and string them through the eyes, or press the oil and store it for winter use, as age cannot impair its qualities. A little oulichan has been smoked and salted for export, and ranks as a rival to herring as a whetter to dull appetites.
Portland Canal separates Alaska from British Columbia for the 60 miles that it cuts into the heart of the Coast Range. Captain Gray was first to discover these waters, and after running into Portland Canal and Observatory Inlet was sure he had found Del Fonte's River. The Spanish commandant at Nootka gave Captain Gray's charts to Vancouver, and full reports of his voyage. The Englishman established an astronomical observatory here under Puget and himself, went with a yawl and two small boats on a reconnoissance that included the shores of Portland Canal, and the circumnavigation of Re illagigedo Island. He covered 700 geographical miles in twentythree days.
Portland Canal is walled by mountains 3,000 and 4,000 ft. high at the entrance, while those at the end of the fiord tower to twice that height. At the time of the Alaska purchase the surveyors named the heights on one side for distinguished Americans of that day, and Peabody, Rousseau, Halleck, Adams, Seward, Johnson (Reverdy), and Lincoln's name grace peaks and ranges that, guarding the still channel below, combine and compose themselves into as noble landscapes as can be seen in any of the broader fiords. Much careful surveying and exploration has been done in its reaches since the Alaska and British Columbia boundary line has become a subject of discussion.
The Queen Charlotte Islands.
The Queen Charlotte Island group lies off the island belt of the immediate mainland coast, placed much as the Loffoden Islands are with respect to Norway, and, like them, bordered with extensive cod banks. The islands are a half-submerged mountain range, the direct continuation of the Olympics and the Vancouver Island chain. The compact archipelago measures 180 miles from N. to S., and 60 miles across at the greatest width of Graham Island. The Kuro Siwo in its recurved course falls full upon the Queen Charlotte shores and gives