Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/75

OCCUPATION OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 67 another river, equally smooth, deep, and certain, running to the great Western Ocean. Thus are those two great oceans separated by a single portage of two hundred miles! The practibility of a speedy, safe, and easy communication with the Pacific, is no longer a matter of doubt or conjecture: from information not to be doubted, the Rocky Mountains at this time, in several places, is so smooth and open that the labor of ten men for twenty days would enable a wagon with its usual freight to pass with great facility from the navigable water of the Missouri to that of the Columbia: the actual distance from river to river several hundred miles from their source, that is from the great Falls of Missouri to the fork of Clark's river, is one hundred and forty-nine miles; the dis* tance, therefore, of two hundred is to good navigation on the Columbia, which is the only river of any magnitude upon that whole coast, north of the Colorado of California, though there are several good harbors, secure and safe for vessels of any size. The region of country from the Ocean to the head of tide water, which is about two hundred miles, is heavily timbered, with a great variety of wood well calculated for ship building, and every species of cabinet, or carpenter's work ; though there is a heavily timbered country thence for two hundred miles further, yet it is of a lesser growth, and quality is not so durable; at that point commences the plain country when the soil becomes more thin, and almost without wood, until it arrives at the table lands below the mountain. Though the soil of this region is not so good as in any other part of this great valley, yet it produces grass of the finest quality, and is emphatically called the' region favorable to the production of the horse ; this noble animal so far surpassing all others in use- fulness, courage and swiftness, is here produced in greater perfection than even in Andalusia, or Virginia. But, inde- pendent of all the wealth which may be derived from the fur trade of that river, and the Missouri, the security too which the peace of this country would find in the influence which the American traders would obtain over the native, is the in- creasing commerce in the Western Ocean. There is no em-