GEOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 257 
Cascades in their seed time being very much shorter; but with ordinary care as to the time 
of putting in seed no danger need be apprehended from droughts This portion of the country 
is wooded about half way from the divide of the Cascade mountains to the Columbia itself, but 
you pass up the main Yakima seventy miles before you reach the building pine, although 
cottonwood is found on its banks sufficient for camping purposes; but when you reach the 
Pisquouse, or Wenatshapam, you come to a wooded region which extends to the main Columbia. 
The forest growth of the upper waters of the Clearwater and of the main Columbia, from 
above the mouth of the Wenatshapam, furnishes inexhaustible supplies, which, after being 
rafted down the streams—that is, the Snake and Columbia rivers—will furnish settlements in 
the vicinity of those rivers with firewood and lumber at moderate rates. So great are the 
facilities for rafting that it almost amounts to a continuous forest along these streams. The 
Blue mountains, which were referred to as bordering the Walla-Walla valley on the south, have 
a general course westward, south of the main Columbia, until they unite with the Cascade 
mountains, from which flow many streams to the Columbia, the Umatilla, Willow creek, Butter 
creek, John Day’s river, and the Des Chutes river. (A sketch is here given of the junction of 
the Des Chutes and Columbia rivers.) On the immediate banks of the Columbia the country 
is not promising; but going back a little distance the grazing is very luxuriant and excellent, 
and the soil rich, particularly in the river valleys. The traveller, starting from the Des Chutes 
river and simply passing southward a mile or two from the (гай, will be struck with the fresh- 
ness and luxuriance of the grass in August, September, and October, and with the arable 
qualities of the soil. This is especially true of the country up John Day’s river; its principal 
tributary coming from the North Rook creek, or Butter creek, Willow creek, and the Umatilla. 
When this interior becomes settled there will be a chain of agricultural settlements all the way 
from the Walla-Walla to the Dalles, south of the Columbia, along the streams just mentioned, 
and north of the Columbia on the beautiful table-land which has been described to border it 
from the Walla-Walla westward. The Dalles is a narrow place in the Columbia river, where 
the channel has been worn out of the rocks, below which about ten miles is the mouth of the 
Klikitat river, whose general valley furnishes the route of communication with the main 
Yakima and the several intermediate streams, the trails pursuing a generally northerly direc- 
tion. In this Klikitat valley is much good farming land. 
It is also worthy of observation that gold was found to exist, in the explorations of 1853, 
throughout the whole region between the Cascades and the main Columbia to north of the 
boundary, and paying localities have since been found at several points, particularly on the 
southern tributary ‘of the Wenatshapam. The gold quartz also is found on the Nachess river. 
The gold bearing, crossing the Columbia and stretching eastward along Clark’s Fork and the 
Koutenay river, unquestionably extends to the Rocky mountains. 
CASCADE MOUNTAINS TO COAST. 
The Cascade mountains in Washington Territory are 130 miles, as an average, from the coast. 
The waters of Puget Sound, Admiralty Inlet, Hood’s Canal, and the several channels connect- 
ing them with the Georgian bay—the whole system being popularly known as Puget Sound— 
lie between the Cascades and the coast. The Straits de Fuca, through which they pass to the 
Ocean, extend eastward nearly a hundred miles, from which point the waters referred to run 
nearly due south as many miles more. The peninsula thus formed, lying between Puget 
Sound and the coast, is partly a rolling and partly a mountainous country. The Coast range 
33 £ 
