APPENDIX. 467 



Moar the mountains, covered with a rich sandy loam alon;^ the 

 bulks of the streams. In the valleys of the Unip(iua and Uogue 

 Rivers, a,boat forty miles from the ocean, there are tracts of 

 similar soil, each about forty miles long by twenty wide, speak- 

 ing in general terms. These rivers, when approaching the Pa- 

 cific, run through steep mountains covered with timber so dense 

 that cultivation is not now thought of. The low land along 

 the banks of the Cobimbia is so narrow that it scarcely de- 

 serves to be taken into consideration in an examination of 

 the agricultural district of Oregon. Fall River has a large 

 basin, but the most of the soil is rocky and desert-like, the 

 elevation high above the sea, the climate dry and cold. 

 There is some good soil in the valleys of the Umatilla, 

 Graude Ronde River, and Burnt River. South of the val- 

 ley of Fall River lies part of the great basin, which sends 

 no water to the sea, but swallows up all its own streams. 

 Several such streams sink into the sands within the limits of 

 Oregon. The soil is barren and verdnreless. — The geological 

 character of Oregon is marked by the predominance of 

 tertiary sandstone in the west, granate in the Cascade Moun- 

 tains, and trap and other eruptive rocks in the east part of 

 the State. The valley of the Willamette has a deep diluvium 

 strongly resembling that on the shores of Puget Sound and 

 in the Sacramento basin, and the resemblance suggests the 

 idea that these valleys are of the same origin and were once 

 connected together, though now separated by the Siskiyou, 

 UmpquM, Calapooya, and Cowlitz Mountains. In the Cascade 

 3Ioimtains, besides the granite, are found trap, serpentine, por- 

 phyry, slate, quartz, and lava, the latter evidently poured out 

 by the great volcanoes which now stand as silent snow-peaks. 

 Gold has been found in quantities sufficient to reward miners 

 for their work in the valley of Rogue River and on the ocean 

 Ibeach from the south boundary to near the Umpqua River. It 

 has also been found in many other places east and west of 

 the Cascade Mountains, but not in diggings that would pay. It 

 is rumored that valuable silver mines have been discovered in 



