Page:Route Across the Rocky Mountains with a Description of Oregon and California.djvu/146

Rh animals, can be kept in the finest condition, between the Cascade Mountains and the Pacific; to furnish the factories that are destined to rise up at no far distant day, in this great world of water power, with heavy fleeces of the finest wool.

Should the United States maintain her claim to the entire Territory of Oregon, she will then have Puget's Sound, the second best Harbor on the Western shores of America, and a considerable district of country around it, said to be good; besides the whole of Vancouver's Island, which, of itself, is capable of sustaining a considerable colony; but as it is most likely that the 49th parallel of latitude will be the boundary settled upon, as the Northern limit of our territory, it is doubtful whether we will possess the fine Harbor of Puget's Sound, and we shall not have more than one third of Vancouver's Island.

The country East of the Cascade Mountains, and laying between them and the Blue Mountains, is an excellent grazing country. Immediately on the streams, and along the base of the mountains, there are many narrow strips of fertile land, suitable for cultivation, and these portions of rich soil, though small when compared with the entire country containing them, (not more, we think, than one tenth part,) will probably be enough to grow a sufficiency of agricultural products, to sustain a large grazing population. And that this country will, at some future day, be filled with such a population, there cannot be a doubt; as it contains, in most places over all the country known as the Walawala Valley, as abundance of the most nutrutious grass, so that, within the bounds of this valley, great numbers of stock can be kept through the year; and although the valley contains no timber, with the exception of Cotton Wood along some of the streams, as the neighboring mountains are mostly well timbered, and as a large portion of the tillable land lies immediately along the base of the mountains, and convenient to the timber, most of the farms could be furnished with it very readily. But those that might be improved on the streams, would, most of them, have to be furnished with the necessary timber, at the expense of much labor, as it could only be had from the mountains, at a distance, in some places, of many miles.

Inasmuch as there is a river called Walawala, some might suppose the valley bearing the name, to be the valley of that stream, and that, therefore, the manner in which we have spoken of it is incorrecdst; but upon noticing particularly our description, and finding that not only the