358 FIRST YEAR SCIENCE 



The Columbia River, although navigable for a distance 

 of only 500 or 600 miles, and thus never destined to have 

 the commercial importance of the St. Lawrence and the 

 Mississippi, presents features of great interest. Guided 

 by this stream the first settlers found their way to 

 our northwest territory. Along its depressed mouth the 

 rich and prosperous states of Washington and Oregon 

 were nurtured through their infancy. Over its possession 

 Englishman and American long contended. 



This contention of man, however, was but an echo of 

 the long contention of the river itself to hold its course. 

 Flowing in a region of growing mountains, it was forced 

 again and again to cut its way through barriers uplifted 

 across its path. Sometimes for a time it was checked and 

 forced to raise itself into a lake in order to surmount the 

 obstruction placed in its way. but its strength never failed, 

 and so through new-born ridges, through lake beds born 

 of its own struggle, through growing depressions filled by 

 its own labor, it held its course steadfastly to the sea. For 

 part of its way it flows through canonlike valleys, and its 

 main tributary, the Snake, has built for itself through great 

 beds of horizontal igneous rocks a canon but little inferior 

 to that of the Colorado. 



The fourth great river, the Colorado, has industrially 

 and commercially attained but little usefulness. Al- 

 though navigable to about 400 miles from its mouth there 

 is little need in the country it traverses for transportation 

 in the direction of its course. But what it lacks in utility, 

 it makes up in scenery. To no other river on the face of the 

 earth has the opportunity been given to show its sculptur- 

 ing power as to the Colorado. 



Flowing as it does through an arid region of nearly 

 horizontal rocks, it has carved a giant trough for itself, 

 leaving upon the lofty sides the uneffaced chisel marks of 



