Page:The Overland Monthly, volume 1, issue 1.djvu/34

 ered with great, old evergreen forest trees.

From the greater portion of Portland the snow-covered summit of Mt. Hood— distant about forty miles to the east—is plainly visible. Buttman's picture gives a fair idea of the view. But the full effect cannot be produced on canvas. You must be comfortably seated on the well-shaded east porch of a Portland residence, on Seventh street, when the thermometer is at ninety, and gaze for long upon that great, white, glistening snow-peak, rising out of, and towering far above, the surrounding, dense, dark, green forests, to appreciate the sublimity and originality of this Monarch of the Mountains.

The principal public building in Portland is the Court House, erected in 1865-6, at a cost of $100,000. Its form is that of a Roman Cross. The basement is built of stone, and contains the county jail. The walls above the basement are of brick, and the roof is of tin. Its greatest length is one hundred and eight feet, and its width, eighty-four feet. The hight from the floor of the basement to the eaves is sixty feet, and to the top of the dome, one hundred and fifteen feet. The dome is a light, wooden structure, rising from the centre of the building and immediately over the main court-room. It is circular form, about twenty-three feet in diameter, and towers in the air fifty-five feet above the level of the roof. From the promenade surrounding its base you have a commanding view of Portland and the adjacent country. Away, across the Wallamet, your eye takes in the houses and orchards which constitute the suburban town of East Portland. A little to the east and south is the Insane Asylum for the State. Still some miles beyond you see the green, isolated hill, called—from some actual or fancied resemblance to the place of the Saviour's transfiguration—Mount Tabor.

Between 1861 and 1866 the material growth of Portland was stimulated beyond the ordinary pace, by the new mining trade and travel with the countries to the eastward of the Cascade mountains. This having since subsided, as all mining trade and travel does, there is a visible decline in the superficial and profitless buzz and bustle that always accompanies the shoal of sprightly and unthrifty adventurers who float hither and thither upon the flood tide of mining excitements. But the real prosperity and importance of Portland have never rested upon such uncertain foundations as these. Portland is the mart of the Wallamet valley, and such it ever has been and will be. This resource can never fail her, and to appreciate the future of Portland you must have some knowledge of the wonderful capacity and productiveness of this garden of the Pacific.

The Wallamet valley lies between the cascade and coast ranges of mountains. It is about one hundred and twenty miles in length from north to south, and on an average about fifty miles wide. It is a third larger than the State of Connecticut, containing in round numbers, exclusive of the slopes of the mountains, four millions of acres of land, and such land as is seldom found in the same quantity elsewhere on the earth's surface. Taking the vote of June, 1866, as a basis, and allowing five souls to the voter, the valley then contained a population of 66,525, which to-day has increased to 75,000 at least. The average of the old agricultural states is about thirty souls to the square mile, but this estimate includes much barren and unproductive land. Besides, the Wallamet valley is already a manufacturing district, and its capacity in that respect is very great. It abounds in wool, wood, iron, and water power. In 1860 the population in Connecticut equaled ninety-eight to the square mile. When this Oregon valley reaches that point, and