be reached in a few hours of travel. Silver Creek Falls, near Silverton, is a noted resort of the Salem people. The creek drops off a projecting shelf of rock one hundred and eighty feet in height, being dashed into a white cloud of spray. The visitor may stand behind this misty veil and look through a cloud of rainbows. On another branch of the stream, at no great distance, is a similar cataract. There are mineral springs in Marion and Linn Counties, chiefly soda, which are fitted up with conveniences for invalid visitors; but Oregon has not yet attempted a fashionable watering-place.
Benton County, next south of Polk and Tillamook, extends from the river to the sea, being prairie land in the eastern end, and having rolling, mountain, and coast lands to the west, giving it adaptability to all kinds of farming, dairying, and wool-growing, and facilities for manufactures of various kinds. The Oregon Pacific traverses it, and it has seaports of its own at Yaquina and Alseya Bays. The Alseya River rises in Mary's Peak near Corvallis, and runs west to the ocean. The Yaquina River flows into the bay of that name.
Lane County, the largest in the Wallamet Valley, extending from the Cascade Range to the sea coast, combines rare agricultural and manufacturing opportunities. It embraces within its limits the three forks of the Wallamet, besides that west branch bearing the sobriquet of Long Tom, and contains thousands of acres of either grain, pasture, or timbered lands, with abundance of water-power,—in fact the resources of a State more than twice as large as Rhode Island. To the eye Lane County presents a diversity of surface which is very attractive,—prairies that from level become undulating; hills that from long swells, scantily wooded, rise gradually into high mountains with crowns of evergreen forest, with pretty little valleys stretching along the numerous streams.
The climate in this portion of the Wallamet Valley is rather drier than at the north end. The elevation above the Columbia is four hundred feet. It is a beautiful sight to behold the luxuriant wheat-fields about the last of June, just before the grain begins to ripen, and when the elegant Lilium Washingtonium—Oregon's emblematic flower—stands head and shoulders above the nodding stalks, scenting all the air with its fragrance.
