GENERAL FEATURES. 619 
though rather from dripping fogs and drizzling rains than from heavy 
showers. On descending the Columbia in a boat, when approaching 
the wet region, the mist is seen standing before the observer like a 
high wall, forming an abrupt transition line, stretching from north 
to south. ‘There is another advantage possessed by this coast section, 
—that the settlers are free from the fever and ague, which prevails 
almost universally over the drier prairie districts. ‘The settlers on 
the Willammet expect a summer attack as a matter of course, and 
quinine in 1841 had almost become an article of diet. Yet notwith- 
standing these advantages, it is obvious that the difficulties in the way 
of cultivation, arising from the forests, are insuperable, except at an 
expense which a new country will not warrant. 
Kast of the Coast Range, in this section of Oregon, lie the plains of 
the Willammet and Cowlitz, a region of prairie hills. 
Willammet District—The Willammet district commences a few 
miles south of Vancouver, and extends about one hundred and twenty 
miles to the southward, as far as the Elk Mountains—an east and west 
ridge about fifteen hundred feet high, forming the northern boundary of 
the Umpqua district. The average breadth has been estimated at sixty or 
seventy miles, including therein the high sloping hills which border the 
river plains. ‘These hills are occasionally a thousand feet in height. Ina 
view from one of them, in the vicinity of the Willammet, wide grassy 
flats le spread out before the observer, which rise into gentle undu- 
lations on either side, and the sunny fields and slopes are dotted with 
scattered oaks and their dark shadows. A brook coming from among 
the hills leaves its little valley, launching out into the wide prairie to 
join the river, and its course is distinguished by a border of pines, 
cottonwood and oaks. Other streamlets, also, are traced from the 
more distant hills over the prairie plain by means of the meandering 
forest lines along their banks; and the Willammet is followed by the 
eye in the same manner till the trees in the far distance seem like a 
forest on the horizon. The beauty of the prospect is farther enhanced 
by the gradations of light and shade produced by the varied slopes of 
the surface. Such are common scenes through the prairie portion of 
the coast section. ‘There are no trees in view but the few that line 
the streams, and the oaks, which are a rod or two apart, excepting on 
elevations above a thousand feet in height; and here the vegetation 
resembles that of the hills nearer the coast. 
The flats, or proper alluvial district of the Willammet and its tribu- 
taries, are divided into the upper and lower prairies, the former sepa- 
