Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/143

Rh Canyon City, the county-seat, to the Dalles, furnishes connection with the Columbia River; and excellent coaches, carrying a daily mail, travel over it. Freight-wagons and pack-trains also assist to keep the dry dust of summer stirring, tossing it to the boisterous winds that career at will over the boundless yellow plains of the Columbia.

In that portion of Grant County near the base of the Blue Mountains on the north side, it resembles in all respects those other mountain valleys already described, with its rich, level bottoms, grassy foot-hills, and timbered mountain ridges. But that portion of the county lying south of the Blue Mountains, is interesting not only as containing a large area of grazing and cultivable lands, but its physical conformation makes it a field of peculiar interest to the geologist. Harney Lake Valley, in this region, is remarkable for being a basin forty miles in diameter without an outlet. The lake from which it takes its name is a small, brackish body of water, near its south-eastern rim, receiving the drainage of the whole basin, and discharging it through some invisible outlet. Lying, as it does, in the most elevated portion of a broken and volcanic country, it affords speculation for the curious. The valley itself has a rocky surface, except in the northern part, where there is a tract of good arable land.

Besides Harney Lake, there is a chain of fresh-water lakes, commencing on the north-eastern, and extending to the south-western border of the county, in some cases connected by sluggish, but pure streams, and subject to high and low stages of water. They abound in fish and water-fowl, and are bordered generally by good grazing and agricultural lands; while