Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/256

 copper, iron.

coal, soda, cement and building materials, its grand forests, its navigable rivers, and last but not least, its incalculable water power — greater than that of all the states east of the Missouri river. The Oregon mountain peaks, with their connected ranges, now conserved by government control, lofty, grand and forbidding, will furnish wealth and comfort beyond estimate or comprehension. They take from the clouds and storms of winter and store up in the in- calculable millions of tons of snow and ice, the water, which being released, by summer heat, will not only irrigate and fructify the vast arid plateaus of central Oregon, producing as long as the race of man shall exist, the bread, fruit, and meat on which he must live, but also furnish the electric energy to plow the land, harvest the crops, transport the goods and produce, turn the wheels of thousands of manufacturing establishments, and lastly but not least, heat and light the homes of millions of Oregon's future population. For a hun- dred years these grand Oregon mountains have been condemned by traveler, historian and economist as frowning forbidding mountain wilds of use only to sportsmen and mountain climbers. But the Creator of the Earth builds wiser than men ; and the truth is just dawning upon the minds of men, that in the conservation of their forests of timber, their incalculable capacity to pro- duce electric energy and a health giving climate the Oregon mountain peaks and ranges is Oregon's greatest asset of wealth and health.