Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/319



Hall Jackson Kellev 283

ccssive belts of forest, shrub and hardy |rfant, and terminating aloft in perpetual frost and unbroken desolation. It was my misfortune at this time to be disabled by ill health, so far as to be prevented both from ascending this peak, and from meas- uring its altitude and fixing its exact latitude.

From the Presidents' range there are two chains of hills extending to the Pacific ocean; one of them branching off from the base of J. Q. Adams peak, flanked on the north by the Umpqua river, and on the south by the Oamet, and ter- minating on the coast, m latitude, in high bluffs ; and

the other chain running from Adams peak nearly parallel with the Columbia river, until it reaches the ocean in a lofty summit, called by Lewis and Oark "Clark's Point of View/'

In all these chains of hills, and conical peaks, and isolated piles, whether springing from the heart of the prairie or clus- tering amongst the highlands, I feel confident that we dis- cover unquestionable proof that in former ages this western portion of our continent was convulsed, rent asunder, and thrown into wild disorder, by earthquakes and the operation of subterranean fires.

The first important river in Oregon, on the northerly side of the Snowy mountains, is the Qamet. It is formed of two branches, one of which rises in a lake of the same name, measuring some fifteen or twenty miles over; the other in Mount Monroe.

Both these branches are motmtain torrents, rushing furiously over rocky beds to their confluence. After breaking through a ridge of low rocky hills, some thirty miles from the coast, the Qamet proceeds in a northwesterly direction, and with a moderated current to the Pacific.

Next northwardly from the Qamet is the river Umpqua, very Similar in size, character and direction, rapid during most of its course, but passing through the level country near its embouchure with slackened ^peed. [54]

These two rivers are divided, as I have before stated, by one of the spurs of the Presidents^ range. Their marghis