the Wenatehe Eiver on the north, and the Columbia River on the south and east, containing several smaller valleys on the west side, namely, the Wenass, Nachess, Atahnam, Pisco, Topunish, and Klickitat, with numerous small streams debouching into the Columbia.
The soil of the Yakima basin is a uniform light sandy loam, with more or less alkali in it. Near the mountains there is more clay and loam, which retains moisture much longer than the soil of the plains, and the river bottoms are largely alluvial deposits. The country comes under the general head of "arid land," although as a natural stock country it is unsurpassed, the cattle ranging upon it, instead of coming out in the spring with lank sides and rough coats, being as round and glossy as if kept up and curried.
This is the original home of the Yakima tribe of Indians, who still have a reservation containing about thirty-six townships on the west side of the basin, watered by the Atahnam and Topunish Rivers. These people kept large herds of horses before white men came among them, and now in addition keep herds of cattle. White settlers at first imitated them in the matter of neglecting agriculture for stock-raising, but the advent of railroads and the outcome of some experiments in farming have inaugurated very important changes. Irrigation is now the demand, and the problem which science and capital are attempting to solve. That it will be solved there can be no doubt.
The first place of any consequence which we come to after passing the mining towns of Cle-ee-lum and Roslyn is Ellensburg, in Kittitass County. It was first settled in 1867, by two families. The present population is five thousand. It was almost destroyed by fire July 4, 1889, one month after Seattle was burned, and one month before another city of Washington —Spokane—was destroyed by the same element. One million dollars was immediately expended in rebuilding the burnt district with brick and stone, and the trade of that year amounted to two million five hundred thousand dollars.
Ellensburg was not entirely a creation of the great railroad, but of the country whose resources have been developed by its people. These resources are both mineral and agricultural.
