b THE CEATEE NATIONAL EOEEST. 



TOPOGRAPHY AND DRAINAGE. 



The Forest is made up of two separate areas, one of which com- 

 prises the Siskiyou Mountains, culminating in Ashland Butte, with 

 an altitude of 7,662 feet, while the other includes the southern slope 

 of the Umpqua Range and the southern end of the Cascade Moun- 

 tains. (See map.) The Siskiyou portion, much the smaller and 

 least important of the two, is rugged and without plateaus, and is 

 characterized by deep canyons and high, rocky ridges. In many 

 places it is as yet untraversable. Descending the mountains, the 

 slopes become less rugged, until finally the rough mountain sides 

 clothed with mature timber give place to rolling, barren hillsides 

 covered with dense brush. At all elevations are openings such as 

 glades, cliff outcrops, and mountain meadows. 



The mountains of the Cascade portion, on the other hand, extend 

 very uniformly in a north and south direction. Their western sloj^e 

 is rather abrupt, rising from the valley of the Rogue River, which 

 has an elevation of about 1,300 feet, to a broad, heavily timbered 

 plateau, broken by gullies, buttes, and peaks. The highest peak, 

 Mount McLaughlin, is 9.760 feet high. The areas which go to make 

 up the main Cascade Plateau are the Upper Rogue River Basin, with 

 an elevation of 3,500 feet and an area of 17,000 acres; the Dead 

 Indian Plateau, with an elevation of 4,000 feet and an area of 30.000 

 acres; the Buck Lake Basin, 5,000 feet high and 10.000 acres in ex- 

 tent; and the plateaus of Lake o' the Woods and Four Mile Lake, 

 the former 5,000 feet high and with an area of 10,000 acres, and the 

 latter 6,000 feet high and with an area of 3,000 acres. In addition, 

 but forming no part of the Cascade Plateau, there is a long, narrow 

 strip of comparatively level land, heavily timbered, adjacent to Up- 

 per Klamath Lake, with an average width of 2 miles and a total area 

 of about 40.000 acres. 



On the Cascade Plateau lie several lakes, such as Lake o' the 

 Woods, Fish Lake, and Four Mile Lake. There is no marked ridge 

 dividing the east and west drainage systems. An irrigation com- 

 pany is now constructing a ditch to deflect the water of Four Mile 

 Lake, which naturally flows eastward to Klamath Lake, into Fish 

 Lake, and from there westward to the Rogue River Valley. 



The east slope of the Cascade Range within the Forest drops 

 down to the broad plateau, of about 4,000 feet elevation, of south - 

 central Oregon. 



Practically the whole Forest is timbered. The only treeless por- 

 tions are a few alpine areas on the crests of the higher mountains, 

 some lava beds, mountain meadows scattered here and there, and 

 brush land, the result of fire. Of the entire Forest 70 per cent is 

 covered with merchantable timber, 20 per cent bears stands of un- 

 merchantable timber, largely young growth, and 10 per cent is grass 

 or brush land and barren areas. 



