to Boise. As the placer mines in Idaho and in East Oregon were worked out, many gold-hunters turned farmers and settled the fertile Powder Elver Valley, finally founding a city here, which has grown and prospered, while Auburn, a mining town eleven miles away which once boasted ten thousand inhabitants, is left like Goldsmith’s Auburn,—a “ deserted village.”
Lake County, which lies south of Crook and west of Grant, belongs to that division of Oregon which is drained by streams not running in any general direction, but either sinking in the earth or flowing into some of the alkaline lakes frequent in this region. Salt marshes also are found, one on Silver Lake and another on Warner Lake, which produce salt of good quality. The soil is warm and productive, but, owing to the entire absence of railroads, stock-raising and wool-growing are the chief industries. The timber of the hilly portions is pine, juniper, and mahogany, which, with the facilities afforded for milling by the lakes, makes lumbering also an important business. It is expected that a railroad branching off from the Southern Pacific will cross this county some time in the near future. Whenever this section is made accessible to travel it is sure to be much sought by invalids, for the air is the most delightful that can be imagined,—so bright and sparkling, so warm and dry. The summer’s heat is not oppressive, although the mercury runs up pretty well. The winters are cold, owing to the elevation, but are not long.
Lakeview is the county-seat and principal town. It is situated near the northern end of Goose Lake, at the foot of a range of wooded hills, and has tributary to it the whole Goose Lake Valley. The population is about eight hundred. It has a good court-house, two or three churches, a handsome public-school building, a bank, a newspaper, and several substantial business houses, and is, in fact, a representative new town of the West,—rather surprisingly modern and thrifty, considering its remoteness.
Klamath Count} T , lying at the base of the Cascade Mountains on the east, is an elevated region with a diversified surface: the northern part being of a broken or “desert” character; the middle part, devoted to the Klamath Indian Keservation, containing a variety of land,—marsh, woodland, river
