Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/434

424 is now a burning volcano. It commenced about a year since. The crater is on the side of the mountain, about two thirds of the distance from its base. This peak, like Mount Hood, stands far off and alone, in its solitary grandeur, rising far, far above all surrounding objects. On the sixteenth of February, 1844, being a beautiful and clear day, the mountain burned most magnificently. The dense masses of smoke rose up in one immense column, covering the whole crest of the mountain in clouds. Like other volcanoes, it burns at intervals. This mountain is second to but one volcanic mountain in the world, Cotopaxi, in South America. On the side of the mountain, near its top, is a large black object, amidst the pure white snow around it. This is supposed to be the mouth of a large cavern. From Indian accounts this mountain emitted a volume of burning lava about the time it first commenced burning. An Indian came to Vancouver with his foot and leg badly burnt, who stated that he was on the side of the mountain hunting deer, and he came to a stream of something running down the mountain, and when he attempted to jump across it, he fell with one foot into it; and that was the way in which he got his foot and leg burned. This Indian came to the fort to get Doctor Barclay to administer some remedy to cure his foot. From a point on the mountain immediately back of Linnton you can see five peaks of the Cascade range. As we passed from the Atila [Umatilla?] to Doctor Whitmarsh's [Whitman's?] we could distinctly see Mount Hood, at the distance of about one hundred and fifty miles.

.—The climate of this, the lower section of Oregon, is indeed most mild. The winter may be said to commence in about the middle of December, and end in February, about the 10th. I saw strawberries in bloom about the first of December last in the Fallatry [Tualatin?] Plains, and as early as the twentieth of February the flowers were blooming on the hill sides. The grass has now been growing since about the tenth of February, and towards the end of that month the trees were budding, and the shrubbery in bloom. About the twenty-sixth of November we had a spell of cold weather and a slight snow, which was gone in a day or two. In the month of December we had a very little snow, and it melted as it fell. In January we had a great deal of snow, which all melted as it fell, except once, which melted in three days. The ground has not been frozen more than one inch deep the whole winter, and plowing has been done throughout the winter and fall. The ink with which I now write has stood in a glass inkstand, on a shelf, far from the fire, in a house with only boards nailed on the cracks, during the whole month of January, and has not been frozen, as you may see from its good color. As regards rains in the winter, I have found them much less troublesome than I anticipated. I had supposed that no work could be done here during the rainy season; but a great deal more outdoor work can be done in the winter season than in the