former self, however, and looks as cheerful and ambitious as if it knew there could be no second delude.
This portion of the Cowlitz Valley does not depend alone upon its fertility for its future importance. There are extensive deposits of coal in the mountains which border the river, besides other mineral deposits which an increase of population will eventually bring into notice. There is, too, an almost inexhaustible supply of the finest fir and cedar upon the mountains which hem it in. The river, as might be conjectured, is a rapid stream, and cold from the snows of St. Helen. Its waters in summer, when the snows are melting rapidly, are white, from being mixed with volcanic ashes, or some disintegrated infusorial marl or chalk.
So disguised in a luxuriance of trees and shrubbery is the mouth of the Cowlitz that, when we are in the open Columbia, we can scarcely detect the place of our exit from it. Crossing over to the Oregon side, we find ourselves at Rainier, where lumber is manufactured, chiefly for export. The location of Rainier is, in many respects, fine; but, at present, there seems to be little besides the lumber trade to give it business, though there are a few excellent farms in the vicinity. Along here, on the Oregon side, is a tract of level land, extending back from the Columbia for some distance. It answers to the depression of the Cowlitz Valley; and it is remarkable that, wherever a stream comes into the Columbia large enough to be said to have a valley, there is on the opposite side a break in, or a curvature of, the highlands, making more or less level country facing the valley perpendicular to it, so that the valleys of the streams may be said to cross the Columbia, and, even, to be widest on the opposite side. Somewhere in here on the Oregon side is the Klaskanie, a stream with a fertile and cultivated valley on its head-waters, the mouth of the stream being far down the river, opposite Cathlemet.
Advancing several miles, we find ourselves abreast of Kalama, on the Washington side, the initial point of the Portland branch of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Here it was that first the silent grandeur of the Columbia was made vocal with the shriek of "resonant steam eagles" that speed from ocean to ocean, bearing the good-will of the nations of the world in bales of
