Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/576

396 the fact that in the year 1907 the freight handled on the lower River by both river and ocean vessels amounted to 4,251,681 tons, valued at $76,583,804. This is but a fraction of what will come with the full development of the Columbia Valley and with the needed improvements to navigation. The Federal Government maintains life-saving stations on both sides of the River. Many a tale of daring could these heroes of the beach tell, should we stop to question them.

We are at the point of the jetty. The buoys rise and fall behind us. The horrible blare of the fog-horn sounds across the thunder of the surf, as we cross the imaginary line from headland to headland. Sea-captains tell us that ten miles from the River's mouth—so powerfully does the mighty current cleave the sea—they can dip up fresh water. But now, to west and north and south, the deep blue, though crossed by the pale green of the River water, assures us that we are fairly upon the Bar. The River of the West is all behind us. If it be very clear, we can just discern upon the horizon's verge, cameo-like and glistening white, Mt. Hood, monarch of the Oregon Cascades, for ever standing guard over the disappearing River.

As the shore line grows vague, it would not be difficult for the imagination to conjure up the navigators of the Old World who sailed these seas, then unknown seas of mystery and romance. Looming up through the ocean mists we may see strange ships and stranger crews emerge,—junks with Oriental castaways swept hither by storms and ocean currents; caravels with the dauntless sailors of the sixteenth