VOLUME XXVH NUMBER 7 



THE 



JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY 



OCTOBER-NOVEMBER igig 



THE LATE PLEISTOCENE SUBMERGENCE IN THE 



COLUMBIA VALLEY OF OREGON AND 



WASHINGTON 



J HARLEN BRETZ 



University of Chicago 



This article aims to review previous references to a Champlain 

 submergence in the lower drainage of Columbia River, to eliminate 

 erroneous interpretations and correlate data which belong to this 

 subject, to present more evidence establishing the fact, to define 

 the character and the extent of the submergence, to correlate this 

 with the Pleistocene history of northwestern Washington, and to 

 indicate questions which are still unanswered. 



HISTORICAL 



So far as known, Thomas Condon published the first note on 

 static water in the Columbia Valley during late Pleistocene time. 

 This was an article entitled "The Willamette Sound" in the 

 Overland Monthly, 1871.^ Condon argued for a submergence of at 

 least 330 feet above present tide, the waters flooding Willamette 

 Valley and backing up through the Gorge of the Columbia across 

 the Cascade Range and submerging portions of the tributary 

 Yakima and Walla Walla valleys. Condon's evidence was the 



^ The article has been reprinted as a chapter in Condon's The Two Islands (Port- 

 land: J. K. Gill, 1902), and also in his Oregon Geology (1910), a revision of The Two 

 Islands. 



