Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/171

Rh Mountains. On the lower Willammette, the country near the River is broken, and covered with dense forests of Pine. Further back from the River it is diversified, with open woodland and groves of heavy timber; and still further, there are beautiful plains, lying between the streams, separated by belts of timber, and extending back to the Mountains. On the upper Willammette the country is more open and level, and is diversified with groves of Oak, Pine, and Fir, and broad and fertile plains, covered with luxuriant crops of grass. Above the mouth of the Yamhill River, a range of hills commences, and follows the Willammette River, continuing, gradually, to increase in height, to its junction with the Columbia. From the mouth of the Willammette they follow the South bank of the Columbia, within fifteen miles of the Ocean; thence they bear away to the South, and join with the Calapooiah Mountains, at Cape Look Out, twenty miles South of the Columbia; encircling the Twalita plains, a cluster of small, but rich and beautiful prairies, lying twenty miles West of the Falls of the Willammette, being in extent about equal to thirty miles square and connected by the Shohalam Valley and Yamhill district, with the upper Willammette. In the upper Willammette Valley, the plains are more extensive, and in some places there is a scarcity of timber; but the soil is fine, and frequently we meet with small spots of clover, growing wild, over many parts of the country. Seventy-five miles above the mouth of the Sandy Yam, the Willammette Valley rapidly decreases in width, until it is nothing more than a narrow defile between the Mountains. No one has ever traced the River to its source, and but little is known of it, beyond the head of the Valley. It has generally been thought to rise in Mount Mclaughlin, one of the highest peaks in