Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 29).djvu/54

 the Columbia would be valuable land for agricultural purposes, if they were not generally overflown by the freshets in June—the month of all the year when crops are most injured by such an occurrence. It is impossible to dyke out the water; for the soil rests upon an immense bed of gravel and quicksand, through which it will leach in spite of such obstructions.

The tract of the territory lying between the Columbia on the north, the President's range on the east, the parallel of forty-two degrees of north latitude on the south, and the ocean on the west, is the most beautiful and valuable portion of the Oregon Territory. A good idea of the form of its surface may be derived from a view of its mountains and rivers as laid down on the map. On the south tower the heights of the snowy mountains; on the west the naked peaks of the coast range; on the north the green peaks of the river range; and on the east the lofty shining cones of the President's range—around whose frozen bases cluster a vast collection of minor mountains, clad with the mightiest pine and cedar forests on the face of the earth! The principal rivers are the Klamet and the Umpqua in the south-west, and the Willamette in the north.

{245} The Umpqua enters these in a latitude forty-three degrees, thirty minutes north.[58] It is three-fourths of a mile in width at its mouth; water two-and-a-half fathoms on its bar; the tide sets up thirty miles from the sea; its banks are steep and covered with pines and cedars, &c. Above tide water the stream is broken by rapids and falls. It has a westwardly course of about one hundred miles. The face of the country about it is somewhat broken; in some parts covered with heavy pine and cedar timber, in others with grass only; said to be a fine valley for cultivation and pasturage. The pines on this