Page:The Pacific Monthly volumes 1-3.djvu/24

4 fallen in with the discoverer, Captain Gray, sent the vessel Chatham, under Lieutenant Broughton, who anchored near Astoria and with his boats explored the river as far as the present city of Vancouver. Later additions to the geographical knowledge of the coast were made by Commodores Wilkes, Belcher and others. The more accurate and detailed surveys of the coast were commenced in 1851, by the United States coast and geodetic survey, and still later the interior surveys have been begun by the geological survey.

In the course of time, complete information of the topography, hydrography, geology, botany, climate and resources of every kind will have been collected, sufficient for a history of physical geography.

In 1804–5, the memorable expedition across the continent by Captains Lewis and Clark gave to the world the first information of the interior of the country. At later dates, exploring expeditions under Fremont, Stevens and others made still further known the broad geographical features of the territory.

The title to the country was finally confirmed to the United States by the Louisiana purchase from France in 1803, and, after much contention, the consummation of the Ashburton treaty with England in 1842 defined the limits of our neighbor's territory on the north at latitude 49 degrees. The very late purchase of the great territory of Alaska from Russia extended the limits of the Northwest far towards the frozen ocean, and nearly to the Asiatic coast. The geographical outlines of the northwest coast, the great mountain chains, the general courses of the rivers, are familiar to all.

The topographical aspects are exceedingly varied. The great Cascade range of mountains, about 130 miles from and parallel with the coast line, a continuation of the Sierra Nevada chain in California, rises to a general height of 6,000 or 7,000 feet, extends into British Columbia, and is traced to the far North. The Coast range, reaching elevations of 3,000 or 4,000 feet in places, about thirty or forty miles distant from and parallel to the coast, can also be traced for long distances north and south, as a distinct mountain chain. Between these two ranges lies the Willamette valley, one of the most fertile areas of land on the surface of the earth.

Transverse ranges and spurs connect these two great mountain systems at intervals, and between them lie the Umpqua and Rogue River valleys. To the north of the Columbia no great valleys occur, the streams draining the western slope of the Cascades having but narrow valleys, with rolling country between.

Through the two mountain ranges lateral or transverse rents occur at intervals, where great streams like the Columbia and Fraser rivers, and lesser ones like the Klamath, Rogue, Umpqua, Stickeen, Skagit and Skeena break through a pass- age to the sea. The great gorge of the Columbia is the only transverse rent which has been cut down to a tide-water level.

East of the Cascade mountains are several independent mountain systems, as the Blue mountains, the Coeur d'Alene and the Bitter Root mountains, a chain of the Rockies, and, towards the north, the great Selkirk range.

Eastern Washington and Oregon is largely an elevated plateau of great fertility, the southeastern portion of the state extending into Nevada being a volcanic plateau of arid land. To a tourist traveling up the Columbia river, the country presents anything but an attractive appearance, and he would be likely to observe, on further inspection of the country, that the valley of the Columbia contained all the sand, and the fertile lands occupied the hills.

The lake systems of Oregon and Washington are small, many of the largest lakes being merely the widening of the river channels occasioned by the oscillations of level of the land or the outflow of basaltic lavas.

The transverse range of the Siskiyou mountains, which separates Oregon from California, is the highest of those chains, extending from the Cascades nearly to the coast, and produces a marked dissimilarity in the climates of the two regions. The Coast range through the state of Washington gradually breaks down to the northward, and gives place to the great mountain mass of the Olympics, terminating at Cape Flattery. These mountains reach an altitude of 7,000 to 8,000 feet,