TOPOGRAPHICAL REPORT ON WESTERN DIVISION. 
207 
basaltic, and there are frequent occurrences of craters, some of which are very deep ; and basaltic 
columns, which have yielded to time and the atmosphere, are crumbled into huge irregular masses. 
The lower table-lands are well timbered (where they have not been burnt over by fire) with fir, 
spruce, and pine; but the higher ones are too elevated for flourishing vegetation, and are only 
covered in patches with a few dwarf fir trees and stunted pines. The fir and hemlock are 
generally replaced by pine on the summits of mountains and other elevated positions, the former 
flourishing best and growing larger in the low countries and along the streams. The latitude 
of Chequoss is north -45° 56'; the longitude is west 121° 23' 11"; variation of needle is east 
16° 5' 34". From a high, elevated point, one mile west of Chequoss, a fine view of the Cascade 
mountains presents itself. From this point I was able to get a pretty accurate plan of the mount¬ 
ains and the general lay of the chains. From this point Mount Rainier bears north 1° west, and 
is about sixty-two miles distant in a direct line. Mount St. Helens bears north 46° west about 
forty miles off. Mount Adams bears north 40° east at the distance of twenty-four miles. Mount 
Hood bears south 9° 30' east; Mount Jefferson south 45' east. There appears to be one con¬ 
tinuous high range running from near the Cascades of the Colurobia north to St. Helens, and 
proceeding on to the northeast, connecting this mount with Mount Rainier. There seems to be a 
lower point in this connecting range just north of Mount St. Helens, as if some river, emptying 
into the sound, passed through it. It is not a gorge, however, and there are five distinct parallel 
ranges running into Mount Rainier, and lying between Chequoss and St. Helens. A second main 
range commences about the mouth of the White Salmon river, and runs up to Mount Adams, and 
continues on to the northward, connecting Adams with Rainier. A third chain commences at the 
mouth of the Ivlikatat river, a light fork of which runs up to Mount Adams on the north, and the 
heavier chain bears off to the north of east, and proceeds to the mouth of the Yakima. The 
eastern branches of the Klikatat river head in this last range. 
Chequoss is on the second chain from the White Salmon river north to Mount Adams. There 
are several sharp needle-points to the south of Mount Rainier, and the mountains in that, vicinity 
are very irregular and thrown together in every variety of manner. There is also a curious 
cathedral-shaped mountain to the south of Mount Adams, on the chain leading to Chequoss. 
Looking towards the south, there are four parallel ranges between Chequoss and Mount Hood; 
and thence, allowing one of these to be the river chain, on its southern bank, we have three ranges 
between Chequoss and the Columbia. The intervening country between these chains is mount¬ 
ainous; in some places rough and broken, in others high rolling table-land. 
From Chequoss the trail bears north of east for fourteen miles to the Hoolhoolse river, descend¬ 
ing the whole distance; abrupt descent in first two and a quarter miles, the rest of the distance 
being gradual. There is a small lake, a quarter of a mile long, in a lava district at the foot of the 
abrupt descent, and on the left of the trail. It is surrounded by a large growth of cotton-wood 
and poplar. 
The main branch of the Klikatat river comes in from the north, and crosses the trail four miles 
beyond the lake. This stream is bold and rapid, thirty feet wide and two deep—fording good. 
This stream may at one time have been a branch of the Nikepun. As the country descends 
towards the Hoolhoolse, from it, and an old dry bed is frequently crossed by the trail between 
these points. The last five or six miles of this dry channel before reaching the Hoolhoolse is 
basaltic, the basalt arching the channel and making it subterranean—depth of the key of the arch 
from four to six feet, and bottom of channel from twenty-five to thirty feet below the surface. 
The arch has fallen in in places, forming natural shafts at irregular intervals, by which you are 
enabled to trace on the surface the course and direction of the channel underground. The Indians 
have a curious tradition concerning this subterranean passage. Once upon a time a great chief 
of the “Eliptillicum” had a wife who was changed into a mouse at his request by one of the 
learned medicine men of the time, as a just punishment for some misdemeanor or other that the 
women of those days were always committing. But the woman’s soul, not profiting by the lesson 
