Page:The Pacific Monthly volumes 1-3.djvu/31

 Southern Oregon. Swans, geese and brant, together with nearly every known species of ducks, cranes, plover, snipe and other wading birds, are found in incredible num- bers, breeding in and migrating to and from various parts of the Northwest.

Eagles, vultures, owls, hawks and buz- zards are numerous, besides great varie- ties of song birds, and the tiny humming- bird flashes its brilliant colors through the foliage of the Alaskan summers. Grouse of several varieties, and quail are plenti- ful.

The Mongolian pheasant has been read- ily acclimated and added to the list of game birds of the country. Very many varieties of this list of animals, birds and fishes are exceedingly valuable to the uses and pursuits of man.

The varieties of the human race, indig- enous to the Northwest, can be placed in two divisions, the Indian and the Aleut or Esquimaux. The vast number of na- tives seen and mentioned by Lewis and Clark, along the shores of the Columbia, have melted away before the advance of civilization like snow before the sun. That great numbers did exist is shown also by the numerous shell heaps, piles of kitchen middens, broken stones, pestles and mor- tars, arrow heads and other implements found at every advantageous point on the rivers and bays along the whole coast. Some of these deposits are laid bare by the washing away of the alluvial banks under which they have been buried for long years, as may be seen in places by the large trees growing directly over the deposits. These natives were always di- vided into numerous tribes, inhabiting a larger or smaller territory, and the tribal divisions were so distinctly marked and had been maintained through so many generations, that the language or dialect of one tribe could not be understood by the other. The different tribes were gen- erally in an attitude of armed peace, or else engaged in active war, the successful contestants carrying off and making slaves of their female captives.

The fishing tribes along the coast were the least warlike or aggressive, and suf- fered from frequent raids and forays of their mountain neighbors. Those tribes of the interior and the North, depending

more on the pursuits of the chase, were more predaceous and warlike.

The Aleuts of the Codiak peninsula and Fox islands were found to resemble in every respect of race, characteristics and mode of life the Esquimaux of the Siberian coast. Ethnologists have found that this race inhabit a circle surrounding the North Pole, and that the race types are well and distinctly marked.

Primeval man or his descendants, the aboriginal races, have, like the native race of animals, been content to pursue a life of nature, hunting, fishing, gather- ing the natural products of the soil and waters, or preying on each other's sub- stance by raids and wars. With civilized man it is far different, and no view of physical geography would be complete without considering the changed aspects of the face of nature produced by the vast workings of civilized man. In the book of Genesis we are told that God gave man dominion over the earth and over every living thing, with the injunction to sub- due it, and man has interpreted the text literally; for, not content with gathering the fruits and killing the animals nature presents for his sustenance, he has entered into a contest not only to take possession of the earth, but to make war upon the operations of nature herself.

Man's vast operations have not yet had the effect upon our Northwest that may be traced in other countries, but give him time and he will no doubt fulfill his con- tract.

The character of a race is largely in- fluenced by its environment. It cannot be doubted that diversity of pursuits and occupation in man leads to difference in character and acquirements. The im- mense hordes of human beings inhabiting the wide steppes of Russia and Siberia, and the vast plains of Tartary, have for ages followed the monotonous life dictated to them by the dreary desolation of their limitless horizon.

A vast expanse of boundless prairie, barely supporting at the most favorable seasons the lives of their cattle and horses, has the natural tendency to repress all ambition and desire for elevation. They have not advanced beyond the semi-civil- ization of their progenitors in the occupa- tion of tending their flocks and herds.