But Though The Hudson's Bay
Company Navigated The North Fork To Its Sources, They Depended
Altogether On Pack Animals For The Transportation Of Supplies And Furs
Between The Columbia And Fort Hall On The Head Of The South Fork,
Which Shows How Desperately Unmanageable A River It Must Be.
A few miles above the mouth of the Snake the Yakima, which drains a
considerable portion of the Cascade Range, enters from the northwest.
It is about a hundred and fifty miles long, but carries comparatively
little water, a great part of what it sets out with from the base of
the mountains being consumed in irrigated fields and meadows in
passing through the settlements along its course, and by evaporation
on the parched desert plains. The grand flood of the Columbia, now
from half a mile to a mile wide, sweeps on to the westward, holding a
nearly direct course until it reaches the mouth of the Willamette,
where it turns to the northward and flows fifty miles along the main
valley between the Coast and Cascade Ranges ere it again resumes its
westward course to the sea. In all its course from the mouth of the
Yakima to the sea, a distance of three hundred miles, the only
considerable affluent from the northward is the Cowlitz, which heads
in the glaciers of Mount Rainier.
From the south and east it receives the Walla-Walla and Umatilla,
rather short and dreary-looking streams, though the plains they pass
through have proved fertile, and their upper tributaries in the Blue
Mountains, shaded with tall pines, firs, spruces, and the beautiful
Oregon larch (Larix brevifolia), lead into a delightful region.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 267 of 304
Words from 72225 to 72502
of 82482
