money in removing the obstructions below the Middle Cascades, and a very large amount is being annually laid out in constructing a ship canal three thousand feet long around the upper rapids. This artificial channel, which is "making haste slowly," is a fine specimen of engineering skill, and a solid piece of work. When completed it will remove the now existing monopoly of this mountain pass, allowing boats to ascend and descend without reshipment of cargoes.
One of the natural wonders of the gorge of the Columbia on the Oregon side is a moving mountain. This is a mass of basalt, with three peaks, extending six or more miles along the river, and rising two thousand feet above it. Its motion is not perceptible but it is certain. It slides both forward into the river, and downward towards the sea. In its forward movement it has carried below the surface of the Columbia a tract of timbered shore, the trees on which long ago were killed by submergence, and stand dark and naked under the water, or when the river is low, projecting above it. The Oregon Bail way and Navigation Railroad, which is carried along the side of this mountain, is unable to keep its track in situ owing to this movement, the road-bed and rails having in some places been pushed, in a few years, eight or ten feet out of line. The explanation of this phenomenon is supposed to be that the great bulk of basalt which constitutes the mountain was poured out upon a substratum of conglomerate, or softer subrock, which is being slowly disintegrated by the action of the current of the Columbia, or is yielding to the mighty pressure upon it from above, or possibly both. The lateral movement is explained in a similar manner, by the concave shape of the rock foundation of the country to the west, and the yielding of the overlying softer strata.
From the deck of the steamer waiting for us at the end of the railroad portage, a beautiful picture is spread out on every side. The river seems a lake dotted with islands, with low shores, surrounded by mountain walls. Almost the first thing which strikes the eye is an immensely high and bold, perpendicular cliff of red rock, pointed at top with the regularity of a pyramid, and looking as if freshly split off from some other half which has totally disappeared. The freshly-broken ap-
