fir, spruce, cedar, tamarack, and juniper—for lumber and fuel, and in summer pasturage for cattle and sheep. There are probably half a million sheep in the Blue Mountains every year, from June to November. There are the saw-mills which manufacture lumber, which, with shingles, fencing, and fire-wood, is shipped by railroad or hauled by teams to the prairies. Unlike the mountains of West Oregon, these are traversable almost anywhere, besides affording game, fish, and pure, ice-cold water, features which make them a pleasant retreat in summer from the heat of the open country.
The so-called desert is that high, rocky portion lying along the base of the Blue Mountains in the central part of East Oregon, covered with sage, and blotched with frequent dark piles of basalt, where for miles and miles no water is found. Yet it is a fact that wherever the artemisia grows ranklj* other vegetation will flourish if water be applied. Water is the one great want of the “deserts” of the Northwest. The scenery of this rugged portion of the State is peculiar. Beginning with this “ scabby”—a new word for basaltic out-croppings—land, the country rises into ridges of loosely piled rock, gray with lichens, and crowned with stunted junipers. Now and then occurs a lake of alkaline waters, but more frequently the thirsty traveller is deceived by the mirage, w T hich is a feature of this high and dry atmosphere, into thinking he sees in the distance what nature calls out for, and hastens towards it only to be disappointed. Beyond all is the mountain mass, in which rise the rivers flowing north through the canons of such a depth as to preclude the possibility of diverting them to the uses of cultivation. Frost, too, comes early in this elevated' region, which the Creator has reserved to keep pure the air we breathe and the thoughts we think.
Everywhere one goes in this middle land, between the Cascade and the Blue Banges, the impression is received of newness,—I do not mean of men’s work, but of God’s work. The country is not finished. The soil is still being formed upon the bed-rock of the Columbia Basin, which in some places is yet uncovered. In other localities it is from five to twenty feet deep. Wherever it has such depth it is remarkably productive, for there is no better soil than that formed by the dis-
