Terms, Five Dollars a Year. ) 

 Ten Cents a Copy. f 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1875. 



J Volume 5, Number 12. 



) 17 Chatham Sr.(CityHaIlSqr.) 



For Forest and Stream. 



^nmhlingn in 0rqgon. 



» — — ■ 



PART IV. 



— ♦ . 



FROM Portland I went to Astoria, at the mouth of the 

 Columbia, and distant one hundred and ten miles. 

 I passed several fishing hamlets on the way down, and they 

 were a scene of bustling activity, being in the height of 

 the season. The canning of salmon is now one of the best 

 industries in Oregon, the quantity of salmon exported last 

 year being valued at $1,000,000. England and China are 

 the greatest purchasers of this most edible product, but 

 nearly all the Pacific Republics and the nations of Conti- 

 nental Europe are now sending orders for it. The canned 

 salmon is prepared as follows : The fish are first cut into 

 pieces weighing a pound ; they are then packed in cans, 

 which have a small orifice i* the lid, and boiled in salt 

 water half an hour; they are then boiled in fresh water; a 

 few spices are added, the hole is soldered air tight, and the 

 fish is ready for exportation. This was formerly a great 

 secret, but the number of establishments now in existence 

 have caused it to be known. Arriving at Astoria I visited 

 Young's Falls, a romantic cascade situated in a dense for- 

 est, and surrounded by shrubbery so luxuriant as to be 

 almost impassable; thence proceeded to Clatsop Beach, the 

 most fashionable watering place in Oregon. This was pre- 

 pared by Ben Holladay, Esq., for the reception of guests, 

 and through his energy one of the wildest abodes on the 

 continent has been made into a beautiful park, with fine 

 buildings and all the comforts of civilization. The place 

 is historical as the spot on which Lewis and Clarke, in their 

 explorations of the Columbia in 1805, spent one Winter. 

 They hunted elk, made salt, and studied Indian character 

 there, and the same advantages now exist; hence it is 

 doubly interesting, as barbarism and civilization can be 

 contrasted at a glance. Board is only $15 per week at this 

 Summer resort, and added to this are fine opportunities for 

 hunting and fishing within even two miles of the hotel. 

 Within that distance the Ninirod may possibly encounter 

 the deer, elk, and perhaps a surly black bear, while the 

 woods teem with the grouse, dove, and quail. The cop- 

 pices adjoining the hotel are also interesting, they being 

 the burial grounds of the Clatsop Indians for centuries. 

 They contain large numbers of canoes, in which the mold- 

 ering bones of many a child of the forest is placed, and 

 little mounds, frequently made of several skeletons— evi- 

 dently those ejected from their charnel house to make room 

 for the newly deceased followers. All the coast Indians 

 bury their dead in canoes. This must have been a costly 

 species of sepulture in the past, as the construction of a 

 canoe occupied several months, owing to the blur.t stone 

 instruments which were used; and from this we can obtain 

 an idea with what veneration they regard the dead. Being 

 anxious to explore the streams in that section, I made an 

 examination of the cemetery to find a sound canoe, and 

 having found one, I summarily ejected its ghastly occu- 

 pants, and was exploring the sinuosities of the rivers and 

 creeks in a short time thereafter. Had the friends of the 

 deceased learned of my sacrilegious act they would have 

 bestowed blessings upon me neither pleasing nor accept- 

 able. 



Having finished my tour of that section, I returned to 

 Portland and took one of the Oregon Steam Navigation 

 Company's excursion steamers up the Columbia River. The 

 trip as fur as the Lower Cascades, a distance of sixty miles, 

 is quite interesting on a beautiful morning, as one beholds 

 the snowy peaks of St. Helen's and Hood along the route, 

 and encounters several picturesque falls and massive crags 

 that loom upward hundreds of feet. Both sides of the 

 river are heavily wooded, and farm houses appear only at 

 distant intervals, so that one enjoys the sensation of trav- 

 eling in a new country. The first object of scenic impor- 

 tance encountered was Cape Horn, a massive ledge of basalt 

 that has a length of several hundred yards and an altitude 

 or 315 feet. It received its name from the earliest pioneers, 

 •wing to the difficulty they experienced in posing it with 



their batteaus during a storm. A heavy breeze is generally 

 blowing about it, and this frequently prevents the passage 

 up or down of all sailboats; even the steamers are often 

 driven to their utmost power to crawl against it or even 

 withstand its leviathan force. When seen in profile, the 

 ledge resembles somewhat an aggregation of organ pipes, 

 as thin rivulets, which constantly flow over it, have worn 

 deep furrows in its face in several places. Two other iso- 

 lated crags, remarkable for their size and shape, lie east 

 of this. They are called respectively Rooster and Castle 

 Rock. The latter is a gigantic crag 880 feet high. The 

 most picturesque cascade seen was Multonomah Falls, a 

 ribbon of foamy water that courses through a dense for- 

 est, and finally leaps into the river from a bluff eight hun- 

 dred feet high. 



Reaching the Lower Cascade landing passengers were 

 transferred to the cars, which carried us five miles, when 

 We took another steamer. This short ride is generally one 

 of keen pleasure, as a person is borne along the edge of 

 the Cascades, so that he has an opportunity of thoroughly 

 enjoying the brawling, foam-flecked surges that circle 

 around black crags, or rush onward through a narrow crev- 

 ice. On this route the stockade in which Gen. Sheridan 

 had his first fight with the Indians is pointed out with pride 

 by the Oregonians, and beyond it the log cabin in which 

 President Grant took his first lessons in roughing it. At 

 the Upper Cascades the scenery becomes grand indeed, as 

 the river assumes a lake-like aspect, and its tranquil water 

 reflects every tree and mountain peak within range with 

 the fidelity of a mirror; islands, small and tree-clad, dot 

 the stream in various places; an almost tropical growth of 

 foliaceous trees skirt the valleys, and high above all, thou- 

 sands t)f feet, loom the dark or gray crags— mountains of 

 stone. No river in the United States can at all compare 

 with the Columbia in grandeur or variety of scenery, and 

 no words are adequate to paint its multifarious beauties. 

 From Portland to the Dalles, a distance of 120 miles, it is 

 a panorama that one can steadily gaze at with intense pleas- 

 ure. An object of peculiar interest on this route is Mama- 

 loose Island, so called from its being used as a grave-yard 

 by the Indians. It is a small, rocky islet of basalt, on 

 which a few stunted firs struggle for existence. It is cov- 

 ered with diminutive houses, made of a few boards, in 

 which the dead of the Dalles Indians have been placed for 

 many years. Old bows, arrows, and camp utensils, the 

 property of the deceased, are strewn about, it being cus- 

 tomary with the Northwestern tribes to place all the prop- 

 erty of the dead in or on their graves. 



I stopped at Dalles City to enjoy the scenery in the vi- 

 cinity and note the character of the country. The former 

 is confined entirely to the passage of the Dalles, where the 

 river contracts to a few feet, and breaks its way through 

 black, adamantine masses of trap. This is a great resort 

 for the Indians during the fishing season, and many a son 

 of the forest may be seen on a projecting rocky shelve 

 hurling his spear into the glittering masses of salmon that 

 play beneath him, or casting hi3 scoop net as they rise to 

 leap. Their camps are always close by at such times, and 

 are the scene of merriment; for this is the festal season with 

 all the tribes who depend mainly on salmon for food . Beyond 

 this town, about five miles, is another Cape Horn, which 

 is situated on the short line of railroad connecting the two 

 navigable points of the river. The country in the vicinity 

 of Dalles City is of igneous formation— in fact, the whole 

 of Eastern Oregon is a volcanic region. Trap terraces to 

 the number of twenty often rise one above another to a 

 height of three thousand feet, and this is what gives the 

 scenery of the Columbia its rude, savage wildness. The 

 overflow of lava is estimated to have spread over an area 

 of 300,000 square miles, as it extends from Oregon to the 

 Wyoming frontier on the east, and British Columbia on the 

 north, and to have a depth ranging from one to five thou- 

 sand feet. The Northwest is, therefore, one of the most 

 interesting regions on the continent to the geologist and 

 lover of paleontology, as fossil animals of the Miocene 

 period are very numerous in its lacrustine formation. 

 Eastern Oregon embraces nearly two-thirds of the State, it 

 haying an area of sixty thousand square miles, but it dif- 



fers from 1he western division not only in its topography, 

 but in climate and character of resources. The former is 

 composed of high, rolling, treeless plateaus, seamed by deep 

 canons, marked by truncated cones of medium altitude, 

 which spring abruptly upward, and traversed by chains of 

 mountains varying from two to six thousand feet in alti- 

 tude, while the latter is principally formed of a series of 

 large valleys, separated by mountains which are covered 

 with immense forests of fir, spruce, and kindred trees. 

 Even the flora and fauna of the two sections are the oppo- 

 site of each other, for the Cascade Range is the most arbi- 

 trary chain on the continent in its distribution of plants 

 and animals. Animal life is very abundant in the western 

 division, owing to its mild climate, extensive shelter, and 

 profusion of food, but that of the eastern is confined to a 

 few species, the most important of which are the elk, 

 black-tailed deer {Cervus macrotis,) mountain sheep (Ovis 

 Montana,) the black bear, badger, sage hare (JLepus arte- 

 misia,) and the sharp-tailed grouse, and one or two species 

 ot squirrels. The botany of the eastern division is also quite 

 marked, from its paucity. The most prominent shrubs are 

 the artemisia (Artemisia tridentata,) and greasewood {Pur- 

 shia tridentata,) which often cover an area of hundreds of 

 miles— a desert of vegetation. The famed bunch grass 

 (Festucca scabrella) of the pioneers is the only indigenous 

 grass of any importance, and as this covers nearly the en- 

 tire country, and retains its nutritive qualities throughout 

 the year, the region is one of the best stock-raising coun- 

 tries on earth. Sheep and cattle thrive admirably without 

 any care, except in unusually severe Winters, and these 

 come so seldom that they are scarcely worth considering. 

 The yearly mean temperature of Eastern Oregon is 53°, 

 the temperature of Spring, and only one degree warmer 

 than Autumn. The Winters are usually short and the 

 Summers long and dry, so that crops are never endangered 

 by storm. Although grazing is the most prominent indus- 

 try in the eastern division, yet some very fine farming land 

 is foun^ along the creeks and rivers, the soil being a rich 

 alluvial deposit which produces all the cereals. Fruit 

 thrives even better than in the western division, especially 

 peaches, in whose production it will equal either Delaware 

 or Maryland. This difference in climate, soil, and resources 

 makes Oregon one of the best States in the Union; for it 

 has all the elements necessary for the support of a large 

 population. Its contrast in> topography makes it exceed- 

 ingly rich in scenic charms, so that nearly all phases of na- 

 ture known to the Pacific coast may be seen there. While 

 the western division is the more interesting, owing to the 

 presence of forests, of which the eastern division is bare, 

 except on the mountains, yet the latter has more of the 

 grand and sublime, quaint and strange in its scenery than 

 the other. Its chasms and cliffs, sage plains and ocean-like 

 plateaus, gigantic pines, and rivers fringed with amanta* 

 ceous trees arouse the traveler's attention immediately by 

 their unusual appearance. Even the falls are of the rugged 

 order, and depend more on the erratic forms of the rocks 

 for effect than the leap of the water. A characteristic 

 scene of this sort is White River Falls, which makes three 

 leaps ere it reaches the basin, in which it soughs and ed- 

 dies and rises and falls with the utmost regularity. The 

 most prominent industry of the country being stock-raising 

 and sheep husbandry, he who desires to engage in these 

 pursuits will find it superior to any portion of the conti- 

 nent for such business. This fact is now recognized, for 

 sheep-raisers from Australia, Scotland, and England are 

 flocking thither. It is a peculiar fact in connection 

 with the region that all animals brought there improve in 

 size and weight, so that they are worth from ten to forty 

 per cent, more the second than they were the first year of 

 their arrival. 



Throughout the whole of Eastern Oregon, except in a 

 few instances, the farm houses are usually made of logs 

 and seldom exceed one story in height. They follow the 

 courses of streams, and as these are much rarer than in the 

 western division, one may travel several miles before he 

 sees a cabin. The grazing plateaus of, this region present 

 one of the most magnificent spectacles the eye can behold 

 in Summer when they are robed in their luxuriant robes of 



