Page:Atlantis Arisen.djvu/422



seems quite sure of a share in the wealth being extracted from its mines.

But it is not for minerals alone that the Idaho annex to Washington is valuable. Besides the rich lands about Moscow and Genesee, the large bodies of timber on the Coeur d'Alene and Pend d'Oreille Pi vers, or that can be brought to the mills at Spokane Falls, either by floating from the Coeur 'dAlene, or by railroad when the Great Northern is completed to this city, constitute one of its most valuable resources.

Lake Coeur d'Alene receives the waters of the Coeur d'Alene, St. Joseph, and St. Mary's Rivers. Along each of these and on the mountains grow the white and yellow pine, cedar, and tamarack. The quality of this timber is equal to that of Puget Sound, and the cost of getting it out is small. The business of " booming" logs to Spokane Falls is already begun, one mill there cutting one hundred thousand feet per diem.

Clarke's Fork, or Pend d'Oreille River, runs out of the lake, which is a large one, and, as I have before said, falls into the Columbia, and consequently cannot be used for booming logs to Spokane Falls. But Priest River, which flows out of Kanisku Lake into Pend d'Oreille River, near the lake, has upon its borders one hundred thousand acres of pine, cedar, and tamarack, some df the pines having a diameter of six feet, and trunks that are clear of limbs one hundred feet from the ground.

There is on the upper Kootenai, or Flat-Bow River, lying chiefly within the United States, and on the eastern prong of the bow which gives the river its name, an almost unknown region, which is only now beginning to be heard of. It is watered by many streams falling into the Kootenai, namely, the Mooyie, one hundred and fifty miles in length; the Yakh, ninety miles long, and half a dozen creeks of considerable size. The mountains lying south of the Kootenai are heavily timbered, and those on the north less densely covered, with the bunchgrass growing between.

Along both banks the bottom-land is clear and covered with grass. This strip is from six to ten miles in width, and sixty in length, with a deep soil which will produce any kind of vegetables or fruits of the temperate zone. The grass grows from March to November, and millions of tons of hay might be saved annually.