468 



APPENDIX. 



the valley of the Santiam, Copper has been found in the 

 Calapooya Mountahis, and iron m the Coast Mountains near 

 Portland ; platinum, iridium, and osmium are found in con- 

 siderable quantities in the gold placers of Southern Oregon ; 

 and large beds of tertiary coal lie on the shores of Coose 

 l]ay. — Western Oregon has a moist, equable climate ; eastern 

 Oregon, one dry and variable. In the Willamette Valley 

 there are no great extremes of heat and cold. The average 

 temperature of the spring is 54° Fahrenheit, of the summer 70°, 

 of the autumn 54°, and of the Avinter 40°. The amount of rain 

 is very great ; the sun is often hidden for more than a month at 

 a time. Drizzling rains and thick mists prevail duiing a large 

 j^ortion of the year. Thunder, lightning, hail, and snow are 

 rare. Ice seldom forms more than a couple of inches in thick- 

 ness, and soon thaws. The heat of summer is never oppress- 

 ive. At Astoria the fill of rain is still greater, measuring 

 eighty-six inches annually, more than in any other place in the 

 American Union. The Cascade Mountains cut off the eastern 

 division of the State from the coast winds, fogs, rains ; and this, 

 in conjunction with the high elevation, renders that part of 

 the country hot in summer and very cold in winter, the ther- 

 mometer in July ranging as high as 80°, and in the winter 

 falling below 20°. — The eastern part of Oregon is very poor 

 in vegetation, the western very rich. In the valleys of the 

 Fall and Snake Rivers, a man may travel for days without 

 passing a tree ; in the valleys of the Willamette, Umpqtia, and 

 Rogue Rivers he is never out of sight of dense forests. Nearly 

 all the trees are coniferous evergreens. Among these, the 

 most prominent are the Douglas spruce or red fir [ables 

 Dour/lasii), the yellow. fir (A. grandis), Williamson's spruce 

 (A. JVlUia7nso)iii), the Oregon cedar (thuja gigantea)^ the 

 noble fir {2ncea nobilis), the western balsam fir (F. grandis), 

 the $ugar pine (pvmis Jjamhertiand) , the western yellow pine 

 {P. contorta), and the fragrant white cedar {cupressus fra- 

 gra7is). These are all trees of magnificent size and beautiful 

 form, standing in dense forests, and some of them rising to a 



