years ago, and almost forgotten, but which are now of good size. Mills and other improvements are going up at this place.
The Coquille Valley consists of tracts of fertile land on the main river and its branches, aggregating a hundred miles in length by one to three in width. Its population is more agricultural than that on Coos Bay, and has made greater improvements in farms. Coquille City is situated on a bend of the river about twelve miles from the ocean, and is a pretty town of about one thousand inhabitants. Without having a harbor of much consequence, Coquille has maintained for many years a coasting trade in vessels drawing from seven to nine feet. Steamers run from Bandon, at the mouth of the river, to Coquille City, a distance of twenty-three miles, and return, daily. There are about a dozen schooners in the coasting trade, and four river boats in the trade of the Coquille. The exports &re chiefly of white-cedar lumber, for which this region is famed. The import of general merchandise last year was three thousand five hundred tons.
The government has made several appropriations for the improvement of Coquille River and bar, by means of jetties at the entrance, and clearing the river of impediments to navigation in the form of rocks and snags. A depth of ten feet at low water has been obtained in the channel, and a greater depth will yet be reached. To secure this result the people have largely contributed, both in money and labor.
Railroad connection with Roseburg is now promised, and lands all along the line, where formerly a single nearly impassable mud road gave outlet to the interior, are being rapidly taken up. In a few years this valley will be known as one of the choicest of many choice sections of Southern Oregon. There are now about twenty settlements in the whole Coos Bay region.
The scenery along the route from Coquille to Roseburg possesses all the charms peculiar to the Coast Mountains, and Enchanted Prairie, the name of one of the valleys on the east side of the range, conveys no sense of bombast to the beholder. The river cuts deeply into the mountains from its source in beautiful Camas Valley, the road approaching the edge of perpendicular cliffs of awe-inspiring height. From Camas, the
