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other decade was to pass away before plans of settlement could be resumed. In the meantime other sections of the Inland Empire were beginning to receive attention on account of the rich farming lands they were supposed to contain.

General Stevens's observations. When General Stevens reached Olympia, in November, 1853, after completing the survey of the northern railroad route, he declared to the people of Puget Sound that there were several great stretches of territory in eastern Washington which invited settlement. "I can speak advisedly," he says, "of the beautiful St. Mary's valley just west of the Rocky Mountains and stretching across the whole breadth of the territory; of the plain fifty miles wide bordering the south bank of the Spokane River; of the valley extending from Spokane River to Colville; of the Cceur d'Alene Prairie of six hundred square miles; the Walla Walla valley. The Nez Perces country is said to be rich as well as the country bordering on the Yakima River."

The Indian -war prevents settlement. His treaties with the native tribes soon afterward were expected to throw some of these tracts open, and other treaties made about the same time with the Indians of eastern Oregon looked to the settlement of portions of that country. But when the Indians went on the war path in 1855 this entire region, except a small district protected by the military post at the Dalles, was once more closed to the peaceful tiller of the soil. The prairies and open river valleys, instead of being dotted over