98 “THE OREGON 
NATURALIST. 
waters of the Pacific Ocean to pour in and fill 
up the low place between the mountain ranges. 
Following the discussion which was held in our 
class in Geology, the lowest possible depth. of 
this sound is easily determined. 
Professor Condon of the State University, 
who has devoted his life to Oregon Geology 
after careful research pointed out the facts and 
arrived at the conclusions which are embodied 
in this article. 
At Shoalwater Bay, south of Gray’s Harbor 
an old shore-line is gradually being under- 
mined by the waves. ; 
of sediment, in which there are clam shells, as 
This bank, is composed 
natural as those of their descendants that are 
thriving in the water a _ hundred feet 
below. 
The material is very fine. showing that the 
water must have been quite deep when it was 
deposited. There 1s 
either in the elevation or depression of the 
no evidence of violence 
place. The delicate spruce cones are found look- 
ing no more weather-heaten than if they were 
last years crop. This depression of at least one 
hundred feet, 
would have covered this place to the depth of 
thus indisputably evidenced, 
many feet. 
Now let us takean excursion to the mount- 
ains east ofhere, with the purpose of ascertain- 
ing how much higher the shore-line was raised, 
Following the course of the Columbia river 
we atrive at The Dalles. Here, from the for- 
mation of the country it seems as if there might 
have been a lake before the river had cut ifs 
channel to the present depth. If so this is, the 
place we are looking for, Tracing up one of 
the many streams, that enter the river near 
this point, we reach a ravine, inthe bottom of 
which, a deep gulch has been scooped out by 
the recent freshets, thus exposing the desired 
spot. 
Here are seen marine deposits similar to, 
and clam-shells of the same species as those of 
Shoalwater Bay. So the evidence is conclusive 
that the sea extended to this height. The 
position of these deposits is several hundred 
feet above he Dalles. Add the fall of the 
river tothe sea level and the depth of the 
Willamette Sound has been measured. 
This counterpart of Puget Sound was a 
beautiful sheet of water, extending as far 
south as Euyene, with a long arm reaching out 
and covering the Nehalem Valley. The sites 
of Portland and Salem would have been buried 
deep below its engulfing waters, while our 
buttes of today are but the islands of yester- 
day. 
Whether the bark of the Red man 
peacefully skimmed its surface or was driven on 
ever 
by savage energy to be sunk in some naval 
encounter, history as deciphered from the rocks 
Whether the Willamette 
Sound was and was not, before the advei: of 
does not reveal 
man we know not; suffice it to say, that as 
with the Lord a day is as a thousand years anid 
a thousand years as a day, so with his servant 
the Geologist, time is not measured by years 
but by aeons, the immeasurable periods of 
time used as synonym of day by the historian 
of Genesis. ARTHUR P. MCKINLAY 
Portland Ore. 
WRITTEN FOR THE OREGON NATURALIST? 
WINTER BIRD LIFE-IN SOM@RiS: 
MASSACHUSETTS 
GC. Cc. PURDUM. 
(continued from page 86) 
(27) Cepphus grylle (760 pt) 
BLACK GUILLEMOT; SEA PIGEON. 
Fairly abundant during very severe 
winters when it is always found in large 
numbers for a short while; the numbers 
varying witn the thermometer as it were. 
Occurences doubtless following the same 
conditions as governed the visits of the 
Auks viz. Height, direction, force of wind 
and severity of weather: as the birds visit 
in about the middle of winter the moult is 
generally complete and as they remain 
only a short time at the most, the follow- 
it 
