Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/332

326 and fifty. There are three distinct chains of lakes in this district: The eastern, known as the Warner, inclusive of the Harney and Malheur. The second chain of lakes may be called the Goose Lake, including its northern links—Albert, Silver, and other smaller lakes. Goose Lake nestles in the extreme north end of the Sierra, and is the source of Pitt River, the main branch of the Sacramento. This fact has been disputed, owing, perhaps, to the outlet being underground in the drier seasons. The third and last, and larger of the several chains, is the Klamath, embracing Wright and Rhett lakes, farther south. The Warner lakes string along more like a river; and the rapid current, setting north at all times, is suggestive that this line of water is really the outcropping of a long, subterranean stream. The amount of water is apparently more than the natural drain of the country adjacent; and the outline of a great river channel is distinctly traceable to the lakes of Harney and Malheur. The latter, however, are strongly tinctured with the alkaline soil surrounding.

"The variety and great quantity of fish for which the streams feeding these lakes are noted; the myriads of water-fowl of every conceivable species that make these lakes their summer resort, and the countless numbers of deer, antelope, and the larger game, contribute principally to make the district of the lakes, what it surely is, the happy hunting-grounds of the expiring race. They are hardly to blame for the tenacity displayed in its defense; this broad pass in the mountains furnishing the wily savage with a hundred avenues of escape, to the right or left, with his plunder and his life. The shelving shores of the lakes furnished him warm winter shelter, and the great depressions natural trails free from snow in the severest