GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE REGIONS EXAMINED. 29 



worn down their beds to depths varying from five hundred to a thousand feet, but even the 

 torrents of the rainy season have deeply furrowed its surface, and almost destroyed all traces of 

 a level character in that portion lying between the mountains and the river. The plain is 

 thinly dotted with clumps of bunch grass, sage bushes, and a very few stunted pines and 

 cedars, but they are all more abundantly found in the canons of the creeks. 



This steppe is bounded on the north by a spur from the Cascade Range, called, by the white 

 trappers, the Mutton mountains. After crossing the valley, in about latitude 46°, the ridge 

 soon bends towards the south, and gradually disappears. It is in some places thickly wooded 

 with pines and firs, and in others destitute of trees. The prevailing rock is a hard compact 

 slate. North of this spur the sage bushes disappear, and a few post oaks begin to be seen. 



At the northern base of the Mutton mountains there is a smaller plain, called Tysch prairie, 

 elevated about 2,200 feet above the sea, and resembling the other in all important character- 

 istics, except that it is much less furrowed by dry ravines. This prairie is bounded on the north 

 by a low range of trap mountains, entirely bare of trees, and separated from it by Tysch creek, a 

 fine little stream sunk in a deep canon. In this part of Des Chutes valley there are many 

 curious round mounds, from twenty to forty feet in diameter, and from two to six feet in height. 

 They are still more numerous in the vicinity of Fort Dalles, and there has been much specula- 

 tion concerning their origin. Some persons suppose that they were formed by colonies of 

 ground squirrels in excavating their subterranean dwellings. If so, the race is now extinct, 

 and it is difficult to conceive how the immense number necessary to make these mounds, 

 could have found subsistence in so barren a region. An officer at Fort Dalles had one of the 

 mounds excavated, but he found no trace of a burrow, nor anything else which could throw 

 light upon its origin. They occur in vast numbers, upon the sides of steep hills as well as on 

 plains, and the effect which they produce upon the landscape is not unlike that of the spots 

 upon the skin of a deer. 



Between Tysch creek and Fort Dalles, the character of the country undergoes a great change. 

 Trap rock mostly gives place to marls. The road continually winds up and down steep, rolling 

 hills, that are generally covered with fine bunch grass and destitute of trees. The valleys of 

 the streams are all more or less settled, and they appear to be fertile and tolerably well supplied 

 with timber, which is mostly oak. This section of the valley seems to be well suited to a 

 pastoral population, but it can never compare, in fertility and importance, with that west of 

 the Cascade Range. There are now two ferries across the Des Chutes river, one at its mouth 

 and the other near Tysch creek. 



Fort Dalles, the principal settlement in Oregon Territory east of the Cascade Range, is a 

 military post and small frontier town on the southern bank of the Columbia, near the head of 

 navigation. It is connected by a line of steamboats with Vancouver and the Willamette valley. 

 It contains a few houses and stores, and will doubtless rapidly increase in size and importance, 

 should the newly-discovered gold mines in Washington Territory prove profitable. A descrip- 

 tion of the Dalles of the Columbia will be found in Chapter V, under the date of September 10. 



It will be seen that the Des Chutes valley is mostly a barren region, furrowed by immense 

 canons, and offering very few inducements to settlers. Its few fertile spots, excepting those in 

 the immediate vicinity of Fort Dalle3, are separated from the rest of the world by almost 

 impassable barriers, and Nature seems to have guaranteed it forever to the wandering savage 

 and the lonely seeker after wild and sublime natural scenery. 



