Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/87

Rh is impossible for Man ever to intermeddle with the eternal majesty of scenes like these.

The material to be removed consists of a conglomerate of fragments of trap-rock, mixed with sand and earth. Embedded in this conglomerate are trunks of trees, often silicified—sometimes only carbonized, and sometimes both together. Of this silicified wood, there are many fragments to be found about the Cascades, embedded in the sand of the bottom-land. Of the trees standing submerged in the margin of the river, none of them are at all petrified; though, from the common occurrence of the fragments spoken of, the belief commonly obtains, that this is a petrified forest. The silica, which has entered into the pores of the silicified wood was, probably, derived from veins of that earth contained in the mass of conglomerate thrown into the river from the mountains at the time of the formation of the rapids.

From the deck of the steamer waiting for us at the end of the railroad portage, a beautiful picture is spread out on every side. The river seems a lake dotted with islands, with low shores, surrounded by mountain walls. Almost the first thing which strikes the eye is an immensely high and bold, perpendicular cliff of red rock, pointed at top with the regularity of a pyramid, and looking as if freshly split off from some other half which has totally disappeared. The freshly broken appearance of this cliff, so different from the worn and mossy faces of most of the rocks that border the river, suggested to the savage one of his legends concerning the formation of the Cascades: which is, that Mount Hood and Mount Adams had a quarrel, and took to throwing fire-stones at each other; and, with their rage and struggling, so shook