202 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



wise sends off many lateral spurs towards west north- 

 west, likewise stretching in plateaux, or contracting 

 sometimes and forming high pine-clad mountains, whose 

 summits are wrapped in snow, which occasionally endures 

 through the summer ; feeding by innumerable rivulets, the 

 upper forks of the greater tributaries to the Columbia, which 

 rush through the placid valleys or deep dark denies. 

 Finally, the body of these spurs dilates more and more, till 

 they all lose themselves in a belt of plateaux, eastward pa- 

 rallel with the great curve of the main Columbia, leaning 

 southwardly against the Blue mountains, sloping off west- 

 ward, and ceasing at about 1000 feet elevation above the 

 lower Columbia level. They are diversified by sundry minor 

 mountains and ridges, besides the Blue mountains, and they 

 enclose within steep cliffs of 1000 or 2000 feet high, the now 

 collected streams which, rock-bedded and rock-bound, dash 

 and foam along their precipitate course. 



Highly picturesque scenery, a healthy climate of the first 

 order, a serene sky which heightens the beauty of its clear 

 waters, render this country of evergreens peculiarly pleasant. 

 Though the waters are snowy and bright, the cold is remark- 

 ably moderate. The rivers are scarcely ever frozen, which may 

 be owing in a degree to their swift currents. The summers 

 are warm and sunny, and a beaming morning in the month 

 of June and July displays endless charms for the admirer of 

 natural beauty. The luxuriant green of the mountains in the 

 background, the lakes, the rivers with their falls, the gigan- 

 tic pine-forests, separated by meadows into parklike groups, 

 with the highly coloured flower-carpet, figured beautifully by 

 dense masses which appear conglomerated together of each 

 sort, far more exclusively than on the eastern side of the 

 Rocky mountains, form a charming coup-d'ceil. Water sce- 

 nery especially is a feature of extreme beauty in Upper Ore- 

 gon, no turbid waters are to be seen, and clear as the stream 

 gushes out of the rocky source, it goes the same into the 

 ocean. The rivers abound in salmon and trout. It is veI T 

 amusing to watch the course of these fish up the torrents on a 



