CHARACTERISTICS OF OREGON 



wanting here. Dull thunder and lightning 

 may occasionally be seen and heard, but the 

 imposing grandeur of great storms marching 

 over the landscape with streaming banners 

 and a network of fire is almost wholly un- 

 known. 



Crossing the Cascade Range, we pass from 

 a green to a gray country, from a wilderness 

 of trees to a wilderness of open plains, level 

 or rolling or rising here and there into hills 

 and short mountain spurs. Though well sup- 

 phed with rivers in most of its main sections, 

 it is generally dry. The annual rainfall is 

 only from about five to fifteen inches, and the 

 thin winter garment of snow seldom lasts more 

 than a month or two, though the temperature 

 in many places falls from five to twenty-five 

 degrees below zero for a short time. That the 

 snow is Hght over eastern Oregon, and the 

 average temperature not intolerably severe, is 

 shown by the fact that large droves of sheep, 

 cattle, and horses live there through the winter 

 without other food or shelter than they find 

 for themselves on the open plains or down in 

 the sunken valleys and gorges along the 

 streams. 



When we read of the mountain-ranges of 

 Oregon and Washington with detailed descrip- 

 tions of their old volcanoes towering snow- 



289 



