Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/384

298 centre of every conceivable scenic attraction. In their near vicinity, too, lie the great mines of the Cœur d'Alene district, the greatest silver lead mines in the world, whose fabulous wealth (forty million dollars a year) has built many a stone mansion at Spokane, or sent the prospectors of yesterday to the ends of the earth for the pleasure or display of to-day. But the limits of this chapter forbid description of these masterpieces. Though each lake has its individual character, there is a general similarity. All have the characteristics of their common glacial origin and mountainous surroundings.

We may therefore make one visit and give descriptions of the one great inclusive scene or group of scenes which may be said to express the beauty, the sublimity, the wonder of the lakes of the Columbia River. And this one typical lake, the all-inclusive, is Chelan, "Beautiful Water."

True to our purpose of following the River from source to sea, we turn back now from Spokane in order to go from Kettle Falls to Chelan by boat. There are no regular steamboats running from Kettle Falls to Brewster at the mouth of the Okanogan, but from the last named point to Wenatchee the steamboat is the regular and indeed only means of public travel. Throughout the entire course of two hundred miles from Kettle Falls to Wenatchee the river is wild and swift. Yet steamers have traversed the entire distance, and Government engineers are now engaged in surveys looking to improvements such as will make steamboat traffic easy and profitable. We pass numberless points of interest, but "Chelan, Chelan," "Beautiful Water, Beautiful Water," is our goal.