SOUTHERNOREGON. 261 



out of the level plain like islands from the water. These are very 

 deceptive in height, and may be seen from a great distance. The 

 party encamped on a small creek, called by the trappers the Little 

 Fork of the Butes. The hunters said, that the party employed by 

 the Hudson Bay Company last year caught more than one hundred 

 beavers during their sojourn in this neighbourhood with their cattle. 



On the 16th, they passed towards the Butes, and encamped, after an 

 ineffectual search for water, at a place that had been occupied for the 

 same purpose by Michel, in the valley or " Kraal" of the Butes. Here 

 they found two deep holes of stagnant water, the remains of a rivulet 

 that was now dried up. The ground around and near the Butes is 

 covered with a great quantity of the bones of animals that resort 

 hither for safety during the season of the freshets which flood the 

 whole of this extensive plain. The soil is quite loose and crusted 

 over with the deposit left by the water, through which the horses 

 broke to the depth of four or five inches ; nearer the Butes, the soil 

 is harder and strewed with fragments of volcanic rocks. There is 

 little doubt that each of the Butes was once a volcano. They 

 are grouped within an oval space, which has a circumference of 

 about thirty miles : the longest diameter of the oval figure lies in a 

 northeast and southwest direction. The valley passes through the 

 southern part, and opens out on the eastern : it is about seven miles 

 in length ; and here the party found water. The valley may be con- 

 sidered almost as a prolongation of the exterior plain, though parts 

 of it are somewhat higher, as appeared by its not having been over- 

 flowed. The highest of the Butes was made, by a triangulation exe- 

 cuted by Lieutenant Emmons and Mr. Eld, seventeen hundred and 

 ninety-four feet. They have the appearance of having once been 

 much higher and more extended than they now are. The volcanic 

 rock, according to Mr. Dana, is a trachytic porphyry, of a purplish 

 colour, which contains hornblend and six-sided tables of mica, with 

 glassy feldspar, in crystals from a quarter to half an inch in size, 

 disseminated through it; some of the rocks have a porcelain aspect, 

 but this variety only constitutes a few of the peaks. The rock is 

 found either in horizontal or vertical layers or curved in all direc- 

 tions, and is thickly sprinkled with mica. The Butes were ascer- 

 tained to be in the latitude of 39° 08' N. ; yet it has been generally 

 believed that these were on the dividing line between Oregon and 

 California. 



On the 17th, they proceeded, and in about fifteen miles they 

 vol. v. 66 



