







of Oregon and Upper California. 387 



IV. Forest and prairie regions. — The valleys and mountain 

 ridges vary in their productions, appearance, and climate, accord- 

 ing to their greater or less proximity to the sea, and the height of 

 the land above the ocean's level. 



The general character of the Sacramento plains, — their wide 

 extent — their upper and lower prairies — the openness of the land, 

 with only scattered oaks where there are trees at all, were sub- 

 jects of remark in a former article, (p. 247.) The Willammet is 

 a similar region. It includes extensive flat prairies — the alluvial 

 plains of the river — lying at two levels, the upper about fifty feet 

 above the lower. These prairies are one to fifteen miles in width, 

 and on either side, rise into rolling grassy hills, a hundred to a 

 thousand feet high. The whole breadth of the prairie region, in- 

 cluding hill and plain, is said to be sixty or seventy miles. The 

 river, winding through the prairie, lies between banks twenty to 

 twenty-five feet high in the dry season, and is bordered by a line 

 of trees and shrubbery. A similar border of pines and cotton- 

 wood fringes each of the tributary streamlets, and in a view from 

 an adjoining hill, the water-courses are traced in their meander- 

 in gs through the plain by these threads of forest. The open 

 prairie is dotted with distant oaks and covered thinly with grass 

 growing in scattered tufts eighteen to twenty inches apart. The 

 ♦ soil is in general good, and where the hills are unfavorable for 



cultivation, they may afford excellent pasturage. 



Such are the prominent characters of the Willammet district. 

 Other rivers have similar prairies varying with the size of the 

 streams. There are small plains about Champooi^. just west of 

 Willammet, near a creek and some lakes. On the Cowlitz north 

 of the Columbia and also about the upper part of the Chikelis 

 the prairies have much beauty. Upon the lower Columbia prai- 

 ries exist near Vancouver, though not extensive ; but for the 

 ^reater part of the distance west, to within twenty-five miles of 

 the sea, the banks of this river ore mostly palisades of basaltic 

 rock one to two hundred feet high ; for the last twenty-five miles 

 there is a change to tertiary sandstone and shale with only an 

 occasional dike of basalt. In the Umpqua and Shasty or Clam- 

 mat districts there are other open prairies over hill and plain, 

 though of less extent ; moreover they are not as productive, owing 

 to the prevalence in some parts of talcose or hornblendic rocks, 

 and of sandstone in others.* 



* From the Columbia to the I'm i, the prevailing rorks were the Aatork 

 ten rv sandstone But south through the Umpqua mountains, there wore talcose 

 and hornblendic rod - and a siliceous puddingstone, producing rugged featui in the 

 landscai , and giving abrupt and broken elopes to the hills. Hornblendic rock? and 

 granite o mtinued to prevail south beyond the Sha y. Then (in the Clammat region) 

 appeared sandstone and basall ain and afterwards serpentine, syenite, trachyte, 

 granite, talcose and other rock explained on pages 250-257. 



