TRAVELS IN OREGON, NO. 1. 
435 
ed here, the green or dried grass affording them sub¬ 
sistence throughout the year. The finest land in Oregon 
is said to be in the valley of the Willamette, or Multu- 
nomah River, which empties itself into the south side of 
the Columbia River, after running a course of one hund¬ 
red miles, nearly north and south. The soil of the 
country between the President’s Range and the Blue 
Mountains is generally a bright sandy loam, barren on 
the hills, but a rich alluvion in the vallev. The third 
section of the country is rocky, broken and barren. Lofty 
mountain spurs traverse it in all directions, affording but 
little level ground, and never-melting snow lies upon 
their tops all the year. All attempts to cultivate veget¬ 
ables in this part of the country have failed, a result to 
be attributed to the great difference in temperature be¬ 
tween the dav and the succeeding night. In the summer 
season this often amounts to more than fifty and seldom 
to less than thirty degrees of Fahrenheit’s thermometer. 
Wveth saw one of these thermometers stand at the 
•/ 
freezing point in the morning, and at ninety-two de¬ 
grees at mid-day in the month of August, at Fort Hall, 
on the Lewis River, near the forty-third parallel of lati¬ 
tude. 
Avoiding the usual detail of a mere geographical 
sketch, and passing over the long list of stations which 
the country presents, and which are seldom anything 
more than mere trading posts, slightly fortified as a pro¬ 
tection against the Indians, it is proposed to give an ac¬ 
count of some of the principal expeditions for discovery 
and exploration which have of late years been sent to 
the wilds of Oregon. Of these the first that presents it¬ 
self to our notice is an overland expedition sent by Cap¬ 
tain Wilkes, when in command of the U. S. Exploring 
Expedition in Southern Oregon and California. The 
party left Fort Vancouver and proceeded by the way 
of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s farm on Multunomah 
