yo The Willamette Sound. 



three hundred and twenty-five feet deep; over 

 Salem one hundred and sixty-five feet; over 

 Albany, one hundred and fifteen feet; over 

 Tualatin Plains, one hundred and forty-five 

 feet; over Lafayette, one hundred and seventy 

 feet. A narrow strait over the present valley 

 of the Tualatin river, ten or twelve miles in 

 length, opened westward upon a broad, beau- 

 tiful bay, extending over the present sites of 

 Hillsboro and Forest Grove, to Gale's peak, 

 among the foothills of the Coast range. The 

 subsoil of the fine farms of that rich agri- 

 cultural region is itself the muddy sediment of 

 that bay. Further south over the central por- 

 tion, of the present valley, and lying obliquely 

 across the widest part of the Willamette 

 sound, there arose above those waters an 

 elevated island. It extended from a point 

 south of Lafayette to one near Salem; 

 and must have formed a fine central ob- 

 ject in the scene. Three or ' four volcanic 

 islands extended in an irregular semicircle 

 where Linn county now is, and the islands 

 of those waters are the buttes of today 



