The
John Day River Also Heads In The Blue Mountains, And Flows Into The
Columbia Sixty Miles Below The Mouth Of The Umatilla.
Its valley is
in great part fertile, and is noted for the interesting fossils
discovered in it by Professor Condon in sections cut by the river
through the overlying lava beds.
The Deschutes River comes in from the south about twenty miles below
the John Day. It is a large, boisterous stream, draining the eastern
slope of the Cascade Range for nearly two hundred miles, and from the
great number of falls on the main trunk, as well as on its many
mountain tributaries, well deserves its name. It enters the Columbia
with a grand roar of falls and rapids, and at times seems almost to
rival the main stream in the volume of water it carries. Near the
mouth of the Deschutes are the Falls of the Columbia, where the river
passes a rough bar of lava. The descent is not great, but the immense
volume of water makes a grand display. During the flood season the
falls are obliterated and skillful boatmen pass over them is safety;
while the Dalles, some six or eight miles below, may be passed during
low water but are utterly impassable in flood time. At the Dalles the
vast river is jammed together into a long, narrow slot of unknown
depth cut sheer down in the basalt.
This slot, or trough, is about a mile and a half long and about sixty
yards wide at the narrowest place. At ordinary times the river seems
to be set on edge and runs swiftly but without much noisy surging with
a descent of about twenty feet to the mile. But when the snow is
melting on the mountains the river rises here sixty feet, or even more
during extraordinary freshets, and spreads out over a great breadth of
massive rocks through which have been cut several other gorges running
parallel with the one usually occupied. All these inferior gorges now
come into use, and the huge, roaring torrent, still rising and
spreading, at length overwhelms the high jagged rock walls between
them, making a tremendous display of chafing, surging, shattered
currents, counter-currents, and hollow whirls that no words can be
made to describe. A few miles below the Dalles the storm-tossed river
gets itself together again, looks like water, becomes silent, and with
stately, tranquil deliberation goes on its way, out of the gray region
of sage and sand into the Oregon woods. Thirty-five or forty miles
below the Dalles are the Cascades of the Columbia, where the river in
passing through the mountains makes another magnificent display of
foaming, surging rapids, which form the first obstruction to
navigation from the ocean, a hundred and twenty miles distant. This
obstruction is to be overcome by locks, which are now being made.
Between the Dalles and the Cascades the river is like a lake a mile or
two wide, lying in a valley, or canyon, about three thousand feet
deep.
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