66 The Willamette Sound. 



A ride of four or five miles from The 

 Dalles, brings us to where three of the creeks 

 referred to join their streams and empty to- 

 gether into the Columbia. The surrounding 

 hills are composed largely of soft volcanic 

 tufa, and through this these streams have 

 worn deep ravines in their descent. The 

 ravines were worn to their present depth long 

 before the period we are describing, and when 

 subsequently the waters rose here, backed up 

 from the ocean, they filled these ravines, con- 

 verting them into deep bays, and thus form- 

 ing so many sheltered nooks into which the 

 streams washed and in which they buried 

 whatever the winds or floods committed to 

 their keeping. On entering one of these ra- 

 vines, we come suddenly to the edge of a 

 newer and deeper excavation in its mid-chan- 

 nel. A sudden melting of snows on the neigh- 

 boring hills, a few winters since, had caused 

 these newer excavations. Scores of them 

 were opened here within a circuit of twenty 

 miles. The one we entered is a large one, 

 though not the largest. It is more than a 



