Page:How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon.djvu/298

 twenty-four feet; depth of hold, six feet ten inches; breadth over all, forty-two feet seven inches; diameter of 270 wheel, nineteen feet; length of bucket, seven feet; dip one foot eight inches, and draft three feet two inches. It was a staunch and elegantly-equipped little vessel; did good service in the early days, making three round trips each week, from Milwaukee to Astoria, touching at Portland and Vancouver, then the only stopping places. The Whitcomb was finally sent to California, made over, named Annie Abernethy, and was used upon the Sacramento River as a pleasure and passenger boat.

These two beginnings, of the printer's art and the steamer, are all the more interesting when compared with the richness and show in the same fields to-day. The palatial ocean traveling steamers and the power presses and papers, scarcely second to any in editorial and news-gathering ability, best tell the wonderful advance from comparatively nothing at that time.

The taxable property of Oregon in 1893 was $168,088,095; in Washington it was $283,110,032; in Idaho, $34,276,000. The manufactories of Oregon in 1893 turned out products to the value of $245,100,267, and Washington, on fisheries alone, yielded a product valued at $915,500. There has been a great falling off, both in Oregon and Washington, in this source of wealth, and the eager desire to make money will cause the annihilation