APPENDIX. 471 
the valley of the Santiam. Copper has been found in the 
Calapooya Mountains, and iron: m the Coast Mountains near - 
Portland; platinum, iridium, and osmium are found in con- 
siderable quantities in the gold placers of Southern Oregon ; 
and large beds of tertiary coal lie on the shores of Coose 
Bay.—Western Oregon has a moist, equable climate; eastern ‘ 
Oregon, one dry and variable. In the Willamette Valley 
there are no great extremes of heat and cold. The average 
temperature of the spring is 54° Fahrenheit, of the summer 70°, 
of the autumn 54°, and of the winter 40°. The amount of rain 
is very great; the sun is often hidden for more than a month. at 
atime. Drizzling rains and thick mists prevail during a large 
portion of the year. Thunder, lightning, hail, and snow. are 
rare. Ice seldom forms more than a couple of inches in thick- 
ness, and soon thaws. The heat of summer is never oppregs- 
ive. At Astoria the fall of rain is still greater, measuring 
eighty-six inches annually, more than iv any other place inthe 
American Union. The Cascade Mountains cut off the eastern 
division of the State from the coast winds, fogs, rains; and, this, 
in conjunction with the high elevation, renders that part of 
the country hot in summer and very cold in winter, the, ther; 
mometer in July ranging as high as 80°, and in the winter 
falling below 20°.—The eastern part of Oregon is very poor 
in vegetation, the western very rich. In the valleys of the 
Fall and Snake Rivers, a man may travel for days without 
passing a tree; in the valleys of the Willamette, Umpqua, and 
Rogue Rivers he is never out of sight of dense forests. Nearly 
all the trees are coniferous evergreens. Among these, the 
most prominent are the Douglas spruce or red fir (abies 
Douglasii), the yellow fir (A. grandis), Williamson’s spruce 
(A. Williamsonii), the Oregon cedar (thuja gigantea), the 
noble fir (picea nobilis), the western balsam fir (P. grandis), 
the sugar pine (pinus Lambertiana), the western yellow pine 
(P. contorta), and the fragrant white cedar (cupressus fra: 
grans). These are all trees of magnificent size and beautiful 
form, standing in dense forests, and some of them rising to a 
