The Willamette Sound. 63 



hundred feet of elevation in the waters of the 

 Columbia must have made. We have first 

 the noble entrance, like that of the Straits 

 of Fuca, extending from the present site of 

 Astoria to that of St. Helens, eighty miles or 

 more in length, varying from five to twenty 

 miles in width and over two hundred feet in 

 depth. At St. Helens it spreads out into a 

 broad inland sea, extending from the Scap- 

 poose mountains to the elevated land east of 

 the Willamette valley. Like the Puget sound 

 of today, whose general outlines this old Wil- 

 lamette sound strangely resembles, it was in 

 its southern extension over the present val- 

 ley, among elevated islands, deep channels, 

 and land-locked bays reaching from the Scap- 

 poose mountains to Spencer's butte that it 

 spread out its greatest wealth of scenic beauty. 

 Our theory would make it cover the whole of 

 the lower levels through which the Willamette 

 now flows. 



Let us trace this grand water system east- 

 ward along the present course of the Colum- 

 bia river. 



