Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/774

The state of Oregon is much indebted to the efforts of United States Senator J. N. Dolph for the government aid granted in improving the Columbia, as well as some lesser waterways. The drainage area of the Columbia is estimated by him to be greater than the aggregate area of all New England, the middle states, and Maryland and Virginia; and the far larger portion lies east of the Cascade range, which has no other water-level pass from the northern boundary of Washington to the southern line of Oregon. This pass is monopolized by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company s track on the south side, and by a railway portage of the same corporation on the north side. The government has undertaken to facilitate free navigation by constructing locks at the upper Cascades and improving the rapids, but the work is costly and proceeds with the proverbial tardiness of government undertakings, where appropriations are held out year after year with apparent reluctance, while the treasury is overflowing with its surplus. The work has been going on for eight or ten years, during which time only about half the $2,205,000 required has been appropriated. The river and harbor line passed by congress in 1888, and warmly advocated by the Oregon senators, was shaped by them to carry forward these important improvements. Another improvement advocated by Dolph is a local railway at the Dalles, which will cost $1,373,000. Besides this, the rapids of the Columbia above the mouth of Snake river will require to overcome them, the expenditure of $3,005,000; that is, the sum of $5,440,500 will, it is believed, open to competition a distance of 750 miles. This will have the effect to cheapen freights, which now are entirely in the hands of the railroad combination, except on the lower Columbia. There can be no doubt that these improvements will be made at no very distant day, when the Columbia will be a continuous waterway reaching 1,000 miles into the interior of the continent. The Oregon