328 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
have a relatively favorable influence upon the commerce of 
California, from which Nevada will obtain all her supplies. . 
Oregon has a coast line of two hundred and seventy-five 
miles, from latitude 42° to 46°, and extends nearly four hun- 
dred miles from east to west. AU that portion lying east of 
the Cascade Mountains (which are a continuation of the Sierra 
Nevada), comprising about two-thirds of the state, is barren, 
or nearly so. It may contain good pasture-lands and valuable 
minerals; but, with the exception of a few fertile valleys and 
pottom-lands near the Columbia River, these have not as yet 
been discovered, or at least not occupied by white men. The 
western part of the state contains some rich placers, fine for- 
ests, and valuable land for farming, but the country is difficult 
of access. The only entrance to it from the sea is by the Co- 
lumbia River, the mouth of which is dangerous to shipping. 
There is a land entrance to Oregon from California on the 
south, and from Washington territory on the north. Oregon 
has a population of some fifty thousand, and produces about 
one million dollars in gold-dust annually. 
Washington territory has a sea-coast of two hundred miles, 
and extends six hundred miles eastward to the Rocky Moun- 
tains. The fertile strip of the territory is only about one hun- 
dred and twenty miles wide, along the Pacific; the eastern 
portion is for the most part barren, but it contains extensive 
placers of gold, which yield about three hundred thousand dol- 
lars annually, and, if reports be true, will soon yield much 
more. The population numbers about ten thousand. The fer- 
tile district west of the Cascade Mountains is penetrated to a 
depth of one hundred miles by Puget Sound and Hood’s Canal, 
the finest bodies of land-locked tide-water, for the purposes of 
internal navigation, in the world. The timber of the territory 
is very valuable, abundant, and accessible, and is now shipped 
to all quarters of the globe. No country can furnish large 
spars in such great abundance, or at so cheap a rate; and this 
resource, if there were no other, would secure wealth to Wash- 
ington. Yet, in addition o these, she has extensive fisheries, 
