212 TOPOGRAPHICAL REPORT ON WESTERN DIVISION. 



crosses two of its small branchi s in the descent from the divide. Follow this stream from the 

 ford to the Columbia, and then turn up the banks of that river. The range we have just crossed 

 runs along the river below the point at which we struck it, and bluff up to the water. Above 

 this point the range keeps back from the river on the left of the trail, and strikes the Wenatsa- 

 pam two miles above its mouth. Between the range and the river there is a low sandy plateau, 

 covered with s;ige and immense masses of gneiss rock and granite boulders. There is also some 

 sandstone at the point where the trail turns up the Columbia. This sandstone is soft, and has 

 been worked, by the action of the water and the atmosphere, into curious and fantastic shapes. 



Two pillars of this rock stand side by side, out upon the plateau, between the range and the 

 river, and are peculiar from their forms, isolated position, and the curious water- worn holes 

 through their tops. The Indians, as usual, have some tradition about them concerning some 

 body s clouchman, but it simply resolves itself into the old story of Lot s wife and the pillar of 

 salt. I wonder, after all, if the old patriarchs, in their nomadic days, were anything better than 

 the Indians of the piesent time, and if the story of Lot and his inquisitive wife did not come 

 down before the time of Cadmus, much after the fashion of the humble tradition of these poor 

 savages about two lone sand pillars on a desert. The country on the opposite side of the Co 

 lumbia presents a very desolate and barren look. It is a high, broken plateau, covered with fields 

 of broken lava for miles in extent, which give the country the black, barren appearance of hav 

 ing been burnt over by fire. There is a higher bluff on this same side of the river opposite the 

 mouth of the Wenatsapam, which runs off to the northeast in a rough, barren chain. A chain 

 on the right bank of the river commences in a similar bluffj a mile and a half from the river, 

 and nearly the same distance above the Wenatsapam, and, running along the Columbia, closes 

 in on this river about five or six miles above. The country between this range, and the river 

 is a low plateau, sandy and barren, covered with wild sage. The Wenatsapam has no valley, 

 and runs among the hills towards the main mountains on the west. This river is about seventy- 

 five feet wide and three feet deep; ford good. A little cotton-wood grows upon its immediate 

 banks. The trail follows up the right bank of the Columbia, from Wenatsapam, for sixty miles, 

 to Fort Okinakane, crossing the En-te-at-kwu, Che-lum, Methow, and Okinakane rivers, all 

 branches of the Columbia. The country along the trail throughout this distance is similar in 

 character. The river has no valley; the bluffs or river ranges on both banks coming down 

 close to it, so that the trail is constantly crossing high plateaux, or passing over sharp blufls 

 running down to the water s edge. Some of these bluffs are rough and stony, and very danger 

 ous to pass, with immense granite precipices several hundred feet high overhanging the trail. 

 The most difficult of these passages are found along the river for a distance of six or seven 

 miles after crossing the En-te-at-kwu river. There are low plateaux, narrow and wedge- 

 shaped, generally found at the junction of all the larger streams, lying between these streams 

 the river range and the Columbia. At such places the range lies back a short distance from 

 the river, but soon closing on it again. There is little or no timber along the Columbia a few 

 straggling pines, or patches of them, only occurring at intervals here and there. The left or 

 opposite bank of the river is in every way similar. It is possible that timber grows upon the high 

 table-land on top of the ridge on the right bank of the river, but it cannot be seen from below, 

 except occasionally through gorges. The Columbia is generally from 300 to 500 yards wide, 

 apparently very deep, and the current is usually very rapid, and in some places rough. The 

 rise in the wet seasons is about twenty feet, judging from the high- water mark on the banks 

 and on the trees. These small runs or spring branches empty into the Columbia about six 

 miles above Wenatsapam, and the En-te-at-kwu comes in about six miles above them. One of 

 the low plateaux spoken of is found at the mouth of this river after crossing it. It is entirely 

 made up of gravel and water-worn shingle, and covered with granite boulders ; it is barren, and 

 on its upper end is a patch of scrubby pines. The En-te-at-kwu is very rapid, bottom rough and 

 filled with water-worn stones. It is thirty-five feet wide and two feet deep. The spurs coming 



