TOPOGRAPHICAL REPORT ON WESTERN DIVISION. 
213 
in very close to the river above the En-te-at-kwn, it is found necessary to avoid them about eight 
miles above that river, passing around them on the high land above. In the wet season it is ne¬ 
cessary to turn off even before reaching this point, as the trail passes for the last two miles just 
along the water’s edge. The trail passes up to the high land through a gorge formed by a small 
mountain brook, and again comes back to the river about thirteen miles above. Two other 
small spring branches enter the Columbia about two miles below this point. The mouth of the 
Chelan is ten miles above it. The country on the top of the range is rough and broken, and 
the river chain is intersected by several cross chains running nearly east and west. There is pine 
and fir on the top of this table-land, and there is no indication of it on the left or eastern bank, 
except a few scattering trees on the margin of the river; we may take the Columbia as the eastern 
limit of timber along this part of its course. Five miles after leaving the river the trail strikes 
the edge of Chelan lake, and, following it for several miles, crosses the Chelan river at the point 
where the lake debouches into it. The river is seventy feet wide and three feet deep; its 
length to the Columbia is about three miles; it becomes a perfect torrent, and is very crooked. 
About eight miles of the lake is seen lying nearly east and west. Beyond that it turns more to 
the northwest, and is hidden behind the mountains. From the Indian information received, this 
lake must be thirty-three or thirty-four miles long, and heads in the main chain of the Cascades 
near the headwaters of the Methow. This lake is over a mile wide. The mouth of the Me- 
thow is seventeen miles above that of the Chelan. Between these streams the mountains do 
not come so bluff up to the river as they have done, but on the left bank they come down to 
the very water’s edge, but are not so high as they have been. The intermediate country is a 
low, sandy, barren plateau, rocky and stony in places, and covered with large water-worn 
boulders for two miles before reaching the Methow. This river is sixty feet wide and two and 
a half feet deep; current rapid. It heads in the main Cascades, and forks miles above its mouth; 
one fork, the main Methow, coming in from the northwest, and the Twitsp from the south¬ 
west. There are mountains or high broken table-lands on both of its banks throughout its 
whole extent. It has a narrow valley in places, but the river is so crooked that these valleys are 
so much cut up as to be unfit for any purpose whatever, even for a mule trail. This river is 
remarkable for the terraces on its banks and on the slopes of the mountains which border it. In 
some places as many as eighteen successive ones are visible. These terraces are also found on 
the Wenatsapam and the Okinakane, and similar ones occur on the Columbia between the mouths 
of the latter streams. These facts, taken in connexion with that of the large water-worn boulders, 
and immense drifts of sand and shingle on the low plateaux, at the mouths of the Wenatsapam, 
En-te-at-kwu, Methow, and Okinakane rivers, and the character of Lake Chelan, and the lakes of the 
Okinakane river at the present time, lead me to suppose that at one time all these rivers were long 
narrow lakes, which have since broken their barriers gradually, only by some violent sudden ac¬ 
tion, and their waters drained off by the Columbia; and, also, that a lake may have existed even in 
the present locality of the Columbia itself, this river running at the time through the region known 
as the “Grande Coulee.” Between the Methow and the Okinakane the river range on the right 
bank runs back for some distance from the river, leaving a series of low, sandy, barren plateaux, 
widest towards the Okinakane; the}'are covered with wild sage. On the opposite bank the 
range is bluff up to the river, and obstructs the view of the country beyond, so that its character 
cannot be determined. The plateaux on the right bank are intersected by ravines, or deep 
arroyas. A stream comes in two and a half miles above the Methow, and high mountains run 
along it, increasing in height from the Columbia. A trail was run between the mouth of the 
Okinakane and the forks of the Methow in a direct line. The country is high, rolling and broken, 
and terraced near the Columbia. This trail crosses the small stream which comes in above the 
Methow. Beyond it to the forks the country is well timbered. There are rough, broken rapids 
in the Columbia, at the mouth of the Methow—“ Ross Rapids.” There is a terraced sandy 
plateau, wedge-shaped, between the Okinakane and Columbia. It is three miles wide and seven 
