navigable, and a light-draught steamer was built to run up to Roseburg, but after one trip the enterprise was abandoned. The town is situated in a narrow defile on the north bank of the river, while on the south side the mountains rise abruptly to a great height, and the whole aspect of the place is as Swiss as anything could be in America.
Eighteen miles below Scottsburg is Gardiner, named for Captain Gardiner of the “ Bostonian,” a vessel wrecked at the entrance of the river in 1850. It was founded by a San Francisco company in 1851. Of that company, two were afterwards governors of Oregon,—A. C. Gibbs and S. F. Chadwick. Gardiner was the seat of a customs-collection office for several years, but is now simply a milling-town. A salmon-cannery on the south bank of the river puts up the late run of fish in the Umpqua. From Gardiner to the sea, about eight miles, the country is a sandy plain. During the Indian wars in Southern Oregon, Fort Umpqua was established on the north bank, between Gardiner and the ocean, but was long ago abandoned. Here General Auger was stationed during his ante-bellum experience.
The mouth of the Umpqua has not a very good reputation as a harbor, many vessels having been wrecked in this vicinity, and only those in the lumber trade go in and out. The government in the days of General Lane’s delegateship erected a light-house at the entrance of the river, but upon a sandy foundation, and, when the rains came and the floods fell and the winds beat upon it, it fell, and has never been replaced. And here it may be justly affirmed that the government has been remiss; for there are but four light-houses on the Oregon coast south of the Columbia River,— namely, at Tillamook Head ; Cape Foulweather, near Yaquina Bay; Cape Arago, near Coos Bay; and at Cape Blanco, near Port Oxford.
The capacity of vessels entering the Umpqua for lumber is from six hundred and twenty-five to seventeen hundred and fifty tons, and their draught twelve to fifteen feet. The exports from Umpqua River for the j^ear last past amounted to 28,926.8 tons, consisting chiefly of lumber and laths, the remainder being in grain, wool, leather (from a tannery at Scottsburg), hides and furs, and dairy products. The import in machinery and general merchandise was fifteen hundred tons.
