BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 201 



have in the Wallamette valley, and whether this be owing 

 to the moral influence and good examples given by the officers 

 of the Hon. Hudson's Bay Company, or not, it is equally 

 praiseworthy. 



Ere long, the hardy scattered emigrants both in Oregon 

 and California will consolidate a government and appear on 

 the theatre of nations, independent of all others. They will, 

 by their enterprize and unceasing civil conquests, overcome 

 successfully the heroic indolence of their Mexican neighbours, 

 regenerate their political and social institutions, and form, in 

 connection with the mother country, on that coast, a great 

 western empire ; an outpost of civilization, which, in time, 

 will be the doom for the reckless despotism in the Old World, 

 opposite the great Pacific. Of that future great empire, the 

 present limited Oregon territory is only the nucleus. 



Upper Oregon. 



The plains and plateaux of Upper Oregon present them- 

 selves in the form of an amphitheatre, when viewed from 

 north-west, only interrupted by mountain ranges. They 

 appear terraced above each other with irregular ascents and 

 confines, at about 1000 feet difference of altitude. 



The rivers of Upper Oregon are all torrents and tributaries 

 of the great Columbia, a river of second-rate magnitude in 

 North America. Those tributaries rush from every point of 

 the compass, except west, hurrying with fearful velocity 

 towards their main channels ; forming, one and all, for more 

 than a thousand miles, dangerous rapids and whirlpools in 

 close succession. They are, for the most part, difficult and 

 dangerous, or unfit to navigate, even the united Columbia is 

 °nly free from obstruction for about 120 miles above its 

 mouth. 



2nd Region, the Green Mountains.— South-east of the great 

 northern Rocky mountain chain, and linked to it, lies the 

 ra nge of the Green Mountains, which, dilating itself to the 

 great plateaux, slopes off towards the south-pass. It iike- 



VOL. V. P 



