Page:Oregon, her history, her great men, her literature.djvu/338



and William Winter of the emit^ration ol 1843. in their book entitled, "Route Across the Rocky Mountains and a Description of Oregon and California," describe that section of the Columbia river where the 'Bridge of the Gods** is said to have stood.

Standing Trees in the Columbia. They said: "We found the trees standing erect in ten or fifteen feet of water as if a dam had beeen thrown across the [Columbia] River, and the water backed up over its natural shores. We asked the Indians if diey knew how these stumps came to occupy their present position, but none of them was able to inform us. They have a tradition among them that long ago the Colunibia in some parts ran under ground, and that during an eruption of Mount St. Helens^ the bridge fell in. ... A short distance below Wascopin Mission (The Dalles) and the Rapids of the Great Dalles^ we found the first of these submerged stumps. They increased in number as we descended the River, as is always the case wherever there has been an impediment thrown into the channel of a stream so as to raise the water over its natural shores. Immediately above the Wascopin Mission and at least as far up as Fort Wallula, the riv^ is full of falls and rapids. Such also we believe to have been the original character of the river below where we find at the present time these stumps and an entire lack of current* as this portion of it includes the breach through the Cascade Mountains the most rugged country p^haps through which the Columbia flows. If these stumps and trees (for many of them are still sixty or seventy feet above the water in the river) had been brought into the present position by land slides as Captain Fremont sug iMount St. Helens, a lofty snov-capped volcano rises from the plains, and is now (1846) burning. Frequently the huge columns of black smoke may be seen stiddenly biursting from Its crater» at the distance of forty miles."-^ohiison and Winter.