time, the Astoria of Oregon as beautiful environments as surround the Astoria of New York.
Only last year the first railroad from Astoria into the Wallamet Yalley was commenced. This is the Astoria and South Coast Railway, which begins at the west end of the town, crosses Young's Bay by a bridge a mile and a half in length, and, running west to Skipanon, turns south along the coast to the seaside resort at Clatsop Beach, a distance of eighteen miles, whence it takes a course southeast and east to a junction with the Southern Pacific's west-side line at Hillsborough, in Washington County, which gives it connection with trains for Portland or for the southern counties and San Francisco; or by the Oregon Pacific for Eastern Oregon. This line will be completed in 1891, being already opened to Clatsop Beach. Another road under survey is the Albany and Astoria Railroad, which is to run south along the coast to Tillamook, and thence southeast through the west-side grain-fields to Albany. Another projected line is the Salem, Astoria and Eastern, whose pet name will be the "Salem to the Sea road;" while the Union Pacific has indicated its intention of building from Portland to Astoria along the Columbia. These are enterprises pointing to the accession of great shipping advantages by the city at the mouth of this great river which must affect it very advantageously.
CHAPTER V.
NOTES ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER.
The river is the soul of the land to which it belongs. Fringing its banks, floating upon its waters, are the interests, the history, and the romance of the people. Our ideas of every nation are intimately associated with our ideas of its rivers. To mention the name of one is to suggest the characteristics of the other.
How the word Euphrates recalls the earliest ages of man's history on this globe! The Nile reminds us of a civilization on which the whole of Europe depended for whatever was
