# The Pacific Monthly/Volume 1/Physical Characteristics of the Northwest

THE PACIFIC MONTHLY.
PHYSICIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NORTHWEST.
By CAPT. CLEVELAND ROCKWELL, Late of U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
THE earlier exploration of the northwest coast of America was made first in the interests of commerce. The wonderful discovery of Columbus produced such an excitement of adventure that in the thirty years succeeding that momentous event the whole world had been circumnavigated by Magellan, and the entire eastern coast of America, from Greenland to Cape Horn, explored, and the Pacific ocean discovered and navigated. The investigation of our subject carries us backward over the lapse of time and through the vistas of many years while tracing the trackless pathways of the intrepid navigators of old.
The only monuments and mile-stones left to mark those devious paths are the great capes, islands and rocks along the shores, the rivers, waterways and sounds, and, towering above them all, the glistening ice-clad peaks, set like jewels on the mountain summits, piercing the sky, and often visible from the decks of their small but venturesome vessels.
The northwest coast of America was discovered by that marine marauder, Sir Francis Drake, who made a landing in latitude 48 degrees, on the coast of Washington, in the year 1558.
The mythical Juan de Fuca, said to be a Greek pilot with one of the Spanish navigators, made a survey of the coast as far as latitude 55 degrees north, and, at all events, the great strait between Washington and British Columbia bears his name.
Among the early navigators who visited the coast were La Perouse, Mofras, Cook, Meares, Portlock, Viscaino, Lesiansky, Heceta, Quadra, Vancouver, and many others. Many of these expeditions were sent out for purposes of trade and barter in furs with the native tribes, or in the vague hope of conquest or gold.
That greatest of navigators, Captain James Cook, in the year 1778, while attempting to realize the dream of explorers and crowned heads, the discovery of a northwest passage through the continent of America, as a short route to the East Indies, sailed along the coast, and named the most prominent capes as far as Cook's inlet, in Alaska, in 60 degrees north latitude. In 1792-4, Captain George Vancouver, of the British navy, in two vessels, the Discovery and the Chatham, made a complete survey of the coast, from California to Alaska, and in his endeavors to find the hypothetical northwest passage pushed his surveys into every inlet penetrating the continent, until satisfied that a passage did not exist. To him, more than to any other of the old navigators, we owe the prominent names of the coast, from Puget sound, through the devious passages of British America and Alaska, to Cook's inlet. In naming the many places he visited, the noble families of princes, dukes, ambassadors, lords of the navy, brother officers and friends have all been remembered and their names perpetuated for ages to come.
Vancouver had been a midshipman under Captain Cook in his first voyages, and was a very industrious and most accomplished navigator. Vancouver did not discover the Columbia river, but, having ​fallen in with the discoverer, Captain Gray, sent the vessel Chatham, under Lieutenant Broughton, who anchored near Astoria and with his boats explored the river as far as the present city of Vancouver. Later additions to the geographical knowledge of the coast were made by Commodores Wilkes, Belcher and others. The more accurate and detailed surveys of the coast were commenced in 1851, by the United States coast and geodetic survey, and still later the interior surveys have been begun by the geological survey.
In the course of time, complete information of the topography, hydrography, geology, botany, climate and resources of every kind will have been collected, sufficient for a history of physical geography.
In 1804–5, the memorable expedition across the continent by Captains Lewis and Clark gave to the world the first information of the interior of the country. At later dates, exploring expeditions under Fremont, Stevens and others made still further known the broad geographical features of the territory.
The title to the country was finally confirmed to the United States by the Louisiana purchase from France in 1803, and, after much contention, the consummation of the Ashburton treaty with England in 1842 defined the limits of our neighbor's territory on the north at latitude 49 degrees. The very late purchase of the great territory of Alaska from Russia extended the limits of the Northwest far towards the frozen ocean, and nearly to the Asiatic coast. The geographical outlines of the northwest coast, the great mountain chains, the general courses of the rivers, are familiar to all.
The topographical aspects are exceedingly varied. The great Cascade range of mountains, about 130 miles from and parallel with the coast line, a continuation of the Sierra Nevada chain in California, rises to a general height of 6,000 or 7,000 feet, extends into British Columbia, and is traced to the far North. The Coast range, reaching elevations of 3,000 or 4,000 feet in places, about thirty or forty miles distant from and parallel to the coast, can also be traced for long distances north and south, as a distinct mountain chain. Between these two ranges lies the Willamette valley, one of the most fertile areas of land on the surface of the earth.
Transverse ranges and spurs connect these two great mountain systems at intervals, and between them lie the Umpqua and Rogue River valleys. To the north of the Columbia no great valleys occur, the streams draining the western slope of the Cascades having but narrow valleys, with rolling country between.
Through the two mountain ranges lateral or transverse rents occur at intervals, where great streams like the Columbia and Fraser rivers, and lesser ones like the Klamath, Rogue, Umpqua, Stickeen, Skagit and Skeena break through a pass- age to the sea. The great gorge of the Columbia is the only transverse rent which has been cut down to a tide-water level.
East of the Cascade mountains are several independent mountain systems, as the Blue mountains, the Coeur d'Alene and the Bitter Root mountains, a chain of the Rockies, and, towards the north, the great Selkirk range.
Eastern Washington and Oregon is largely an elevated plateau of great fertility, the southeastern portion of the state extending into Nevada being a volcanic plateau of arid land. To a tourist traveling up the Columbia river, the country presents anything but an attractive appearance, and he would be likely to observe, on further inspection of the country, that the valley of the Columbia contained all the sand, and the fertile lands occupied the hills.
The lake systems of Oregon and Washington are small, many of the largest lakes being merely the widening of the river channels occasioned by the oscillations of level of the land or the outflow of basaltic lavas.
The transverse range of the Siskiyou mountains, which separates Oregon from California, is the highest of those chains, extending from the Cascades nearly to the coast, and produces a marked dissimilarity in the climates of the two regions. The Coast range through the state of Washington gradually breaks down to the northward, and gives place to the great mountain mass of the Olympics, terminating at Cape Flattery. These mountains reach an altitude of 7,000 to 8,000 feet, ​retaining snow on the highest peaks throughout the summer season. Vancouver's island consists of another independent mass of rough mountains, except in the southeastern part, rising to elevations of 5,000 feet or more.
The country constituting the shores of Puget sound, including the numerous islands, is formed generally of immense stratified beds of clay, sand and gravel; but, going northward, the islands and headlands through the Canal de Haro, Rosario straits and the Gulf of Georgia become high and rocky.
Still further to the northward, through the wonderful labyrinth of fiords and inlets forming the inland navigation passages of British America, and up through the hundreds of islands of the Archipelago Alexander, in Alaska, as far as Cross sound and Glacier bay, the shores maintain their rugged, rocky character. The channels through these islands are very deep, the charts often showing 100 fathoms and no bottom; and, at the head of nearly every fiord penetrating the continent, great glaciers force their way down to the salt water. Above Cross sound the immense mountain range containing the peaks of Mounts Fairweather, Cook and Crillon commences, running northwest and culminating in Mount St. Elias, the loftiest mountain in North America. In this latitude the peninsula of Alaska projects towards the southeast, and in continuation the Fox islands, running along nearly parallel with the Arctic circle, stretch away towards the shores of Asia. The great river, Yukon, rises in British America, eastward of Mount St. Elias, traverses the whole width of Alaska, touching the Arctic circle, and flowing through many mouths into Behring sea.
To the north of this river the country is entirely unexplored, but is believed to be a sterile, treeless waste, covered with a thick growth of spagnum or moss, to the shores of the Arctic ocean.
The coast of Oregon and Washington, from the California line to Cape Flattery, runs nearly north and south, and presents no very great projections of capes, and affords but few harbors for vessels in distress.
The spurs of the Coast range of mountains often reach the seashore, and when the land first emerged from the waters the ocean reached much further inland than at present. Formerly the waves of the ocean broke directly on the shores of Young's bay and the present site of Astoria, as far as Tongue point. Afterwards the ocean currents, following along the shores, deposited the sand washed down from the cliffs, in the long beaches reaching from headland to headland, leaving an opening or entrance whose width was determined by the area of the tidal basins enclosed within.
Gradually the tide lands were built up from the silt brought down the streams, and the two great forces, the sea on one side and the enclosed waters on the other, established the present forms of the numerous small bays along the coast. Port Orford, on the southern coast of Oregon, is the largest and best summer roadstead, but it is exposed to the fury of winter gales. Destruction island, off the Washington shore, is the only spot of land on the coast large enough to be called an island.
The influence of man in improving for his benefit the conditions imposed by nature may be instanced in the works at the entrance to the Columbia river, where in place of a dangerous channel and bar a very good and secure one has been formed. The tremendous forces of nature may often be seen on our coasts in the effects produced by ocean waves breaking on the shore. In the summer of 1877, while at work on the adjacent coast, a very high tide occurred, with an immense surf rolling in from the westward, the result of some storm far out at sea. The beach had been piled up with drifting sand to a great depth, and the sea rose so high as to lash the foot of the cliffs; but one high tide sufficed to level the beach as smooth as a floor, and sweep the sand into the ocean, a result that 100,000 laborers could not have accomplished in many years.
The bottom of the ocean, off the shores of Oregon and Washington, is mainly a smooth plateau or floor, having a very gentle, regular slope many miles off the coast. The continuity of this sub-ocean plain is broken is some places by ranges of submarine hills, parallel with the Coast range. The summits of these hills are known as banks, and are the feeding​grounds (as well as the fishing-grounds) for vast numbers of fish. The streams or currents of the ocean along the northwest coast are dominated by the effects of the Japanese stream, the great ocean current of the Pacific, which, having its rise in the warm regions of the tropics, flows past the coast of Japan, and, crossing over, loses itself on the American shores. The course and effect of this stream is very similar to the well-known Gulf stream of the Atlantic. It keeps the temperature of the ocean at nearly a constant degree of warmth throughout the year, and we shall see that it has the effect of maintaining a very modified and mild winter climate in comparatively high latitudes.
The ocean currents, however, are changed by the force and direction of the prevailing winds on this coast. For nearly half of the year, northwest winds prevail along the whole coast, while during the winter months the winds come from the southeast and southwest. The summer winds, far off the coast, are the trade winds, and blow from the southwest, gradually shifting, as the coast is approached, to the northwest. In winter the southerly winds pile up the waters along the coast, and, flowing off, produce a strong current to the northward, as is seen by the frequent presence of redwood logs cast up on the shores, a tree which hardly appears north of the California line. The prevailing winds of summer, blowing from off the ocean, maintain a very equable degree of temperature over the land, as far as their influence reaches, a temperature entirely controlled by the effects of the Japan stream. The polar current of cold, Arctic waters, flowing down through Behring straits, owing to the difference in specific gravity of warm and cold water, settles down and flows underneath the warm equatorial waters.
The winds blowing over the warm surface waters absorb the radiated heat and maintain the high annual mean temperature over our land, which we enjoy. Were it not for the great modification in climate produced by the Japan stream, the limit of perpetual snow would reach far down the slopes of the Cascade mountains, and the glaciers of Mount Hood and Mount Adams probably reach to the Columbia river. The effects of these winds are felt along the coast as far inland as the Cascade mountains.
East of that great barrier, the summers are warmer and the winters colder than on the west. The climate in other respects is very dissimilar, rain being more prevalent on the west, and snow on the east side of these mountains.
The geological features of the northwest coast are well marked. The eozoic formation is found in the Coast range and in the Blue mountains — but the greatest exemplification of any geologic age in the Northwest is the volcanic.
The Sierra Nevada and Cascade range was elevated at the close of the Jurassic period, but not to its present height. At the end of the Miocene period, simultaneously with the elevation of the Coast range, the Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountains were lifted up to their present great elevation, and, under the tremendous pressure, seem to have been rent and fissured along the entire crest from Middle California to the far North in British America. During this elevation took place the most stupendous exhibition of volcanic and eruptive energy of any age or part of the world, great floods of liquid lava and basalt pouring from the Cascade range, covering nearly the whole of Oregon, Washington and Idaho, and extending into Nevada, California and British Columbia, and into the ocean. This great deposit flowed over the country in waves and sheets, filling the beds of rivers and creeks to a depth of 2,000 to 4,000 feet, and utterly destroying all life. The gloomy canyon of the Snake river is a most striking illustration of the depth of the lava flow, where may be seen along its terraced sides the thickness of the successive sheets. The bottom of this lava flow is an unknown depth below the sea level, as can be seen in the great ocean capes and in the bluffs along the Columbia river. Towards the close of this eruption, the vents of the imprisoned fires became confined to the points known as Mounts Shasta, Hood, Rainier, etc., from which liquid lava, scoriae, pumice and ashes continued to be emitted for a long period, building up their cones to a height probably far above their present altitude. The action of glaciers and melting ice is believed to have worn away the height of ​these great peaks 1,000 feet or more, and in most instances all traces of a crater have been obliterated. Crater lake occupies a crater of what was probably a great lava vent in the earlier outflow. It is 6,000 feet above the sea level, and, being nearly 2,000 feet in depth, is the deepest body of fresh water in North America. On all these great peaks of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada range, of which the most southern is Lassen's butte, in Plumas county, California, solfataras, or hot springs, abound, an evidence that the subterranean fires are not yet extinct. Mount Vesuvius was not known to be a volcano until the year 79 A. D., when it broke forth in the momentous eruption that buried the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii under a deluge of ashes and mud, and for nearly 2,000 years since has been periodically active.
There are traditions that Lassen's butte, Mounts Hood and St. Helens have given evidence of being still alive, but no great outburst of lava has probably taken place for a long period. Lassen's butte shows more signs of activity than any volcanic cone in the Sierra Nevada range, boiling springs, fumerells, geysers and mud volcanoes on a small scale being constantly active and energetic on the south side of that peak. On the peninsula of Alaska, however, and on several of the Aleutian islands, the volcano of Illiamnoe, the Redobt volcano and others are still alive and active. The great capes along the coast are generally of basaltic lavas, the result of the ancient flow; the sea, that great leveler, having eaten away the softer Tertiary deposits, leaving the harder material projecting far into the ocean.
Cape Lookout, for instance, projects two miles from the beach into deep water. It is a great basaltic dike, perpendicular along the south face, 430 feet high at the point, and nearly 1,000 feet high where the coast trail passes over.
When the Cascade range was elevated large bodies of the ocean were enclosed between that range and the Rocky mountains. The transverse fissure, now occupied by the Columbia river, was afterwards formed and served to drain the salt water from a vast portion of the interior, the sea retreating to a few of the saline lakes in Southeastern Oregon. During the cretaceous period, animal and plant life was abundant in the Northwest, as is shown by the great number of fossil remains in the valleys of the Des Chutes, Crooked and John Day rivers; also in Grand Ronde valley and Hangman's creek. Huge animals of the mastodon family wandered through the forests of the infant world, and along the grassy shores of the ancient lake grazed the gentle oreodon, unmolested by the twang of the bow-string or crack of the hunter's rifle; man had not yet appeared upon the earth.
In regard to the carboniferous measures, geologists are disposed generally to refer all the coal deposits to the Tertiary period, and class them as different forms and grades of lignite. Several deposits of coal in British America are asserted to be anthracite in character, but the anthracitic character of the deposits is claimed to be produced by heat due to local pressure only.
The coal deposits of the Northwest are found to the northward and within the Arctic circle. Coal is known to be due to the mineralized carbonaceous deposits of vegetable life; and, moreover, that life must have been very abundant and favored by the existence of a sub-tropical climate, as is shown by the fossil remains, animal and vegetable. But scientists are at a loss to account for the fact that such a climate and vegetation existed at that time in latitudes far beyond the present limits of trees, or indeed any other growth except mosses and lichens. If astronomy would admit that the poles oi the earth had changed during the life of the infant world, the problem would be solved. Many authorities claim that though the poles of the earth have during past ages pointed towards far different stars than they do now, the geographical poles have always maintained the present angle with the ecliptic or plane of the earth's path around the sun, thus making the seasons always the same as now. Others, however, admit that the axis of the earth may have changed 20, 30 or 40 deg. in inclination. The subject is too involved, except for a student of science, and need not be pursued further. No thorough geological examination of the country has yet been made, and until that ​is done it is impossible to study the subject in detail.
The glacial epoch is well marked in the Northwest, and all the northern canyons of the great peaks as far south as Mount Shasta still contain glaciers, many of them exceeding the celebrated glaciers of the Alps.
The glaciers become larger and reach further down the mountain sides as you go north, until Alaska is reached, where all the mountain summits are capped with wide fields of snow, and the glaciers force their way down to the sea, and every gorge is filled. During the glacial age vast fields of ice and snow covered the Northern hemisphere of both continents for a great distance from the poles to an unknown depth, driving all existing forms of animal life towards the sub-tropical zone and substituting arctic forms.
The evidence of erosive action of glaciers is unmistakable in many localities, and one of the finest effects of such action may be seen near the city of Victoria, Vancouver island. Opposite the city, across the bridge, on the reservation, is a large area of bare basaltic rock ploughed and furrowed by glacial action, the striae running from northwest to southeast. At the time the ocean wharf was building, the rock was uncovered during the process of grading a road, and the glacial markings were bright, clean and not weathered. Long grooves, generally parallel and often 10 or 12 inches deep, gouged out of the solid ledge, looked like the handiwork of a skilled stone-mason and were polished as smooth as a piece of statuary. Science is also unable to inform us of the momentous changes that must have taken place to produce the ice age, when all plant life over a large part of the Northern hemisphere was destroyed and animal life of the temperate clime driven towards subtropical regions. Some theorists have advanced the hypothesis that the surface of the sun was to a very large extent covered with spots which are now seen to prevail at successive intervals of 11% years, and that owing to this prevalence the amount of heat and light given forth was very much lessened. This aspect of the sun being continued through many thousand years, polar conditions of climate were practically maintained over a large area of the Northern hemisphere. Gradually the ice and snow disappeared from the temperate zones, the glaciers retreated to their proper homes in the North, and life once more flourished over a smiling land.
The northwest coast, in common with all parts of the globe, has been subject to great and frequent oscillations of level, epochs of subsidence and upheaval being well marked in the Tertiary and post-Tertiary or latest geological age. These oscillations sunk the land below the surface of the ocean many thousand feet, raising it again to present elevations, as is shown by the abundance of fossil marine life on the summits of very high mountains. I have gathered shells of clams, identical with existing species, on the summit of Bald mountain, near Port Orford, 3,000 feet above the sea level. While engaged in professional duties near San Simeon, on the California coast, I discovered a bed of the "Ostrea Titan," or gigantic fossil oyster, specimens of which were two feet or more in length, with a thickness of shell near the hinges of four or five inches. A half dozen raw or on the half-shell would be a formidable dish to set before a king. Above this oyster bed was a ledge of coral rock, and there on the mountain side, among the sagebrush, blooming ceanothus and wild morning-glory, firmly cemented to the extreme point of a projecting coral rock, was the beautiful, enameled tooth of a shark. But how changed the scene; instead of some dark, unfathomed cave far beneath the blue waters, where the sea anemone opened its petals among the corals, where the fierce and predatory shark pursued its prey, the jay flew screaming down the canyon, and the wild bee hung to the nodding flowers.
The oscillations of level of the land can be studied very conveniently and near at home on the adjacent coast. There exists a long line of high cliffs between Siletz bay and the mouth of Salmon river, where the erosive action of the surf has exposed to view a great section of alternate beds of sand, gravel and marl or bog mud, in which are imbedded the roots and prostrate trunks of spruce and alder trees, of the same varieties as existing species. These trunks protrude from the banks, greatly compressed by the immense ​weight of one or two hundred feet of sand and gravel, were not yet fossilized, but would burn when thrown on the campflre with but little flame, leaving an ash strongly colored with oxide of iron.
In some localities this wood has been partly carbonized, forming a semi-lignite or partial coal. These beds of fossil wood occurring as strata at three or more suc- cessive elevations In the face of the cliffs are identical in soil and vegetable prod- ucts with existing tide lands, which are always formed near the level of high tides. They indicate distinct periods of repose, when the deposits of mud were forming and the trees reaching their growth. They also point to a subsidence, more or less sudden, when the deposits of sand and gravel were accumulated, fol- lowed by another cycle of building and growth. . . . Associated with the ge- ology of the country is the study of min- eralogy and the various mineral, metallic and other products of the earth.
The older mountain ranges of the Cas- cades, Blue mountains and Coeur d'Alenes are rich in deposits of precious and use- ful minerals. No portion of our country has so many and varied mineral resources as the Northwest, though the develop- ment of these hidden treasures can hardly be said to have been commenced.
The gold mining of the Northwest is principally in placer deposits. The coun- ties of Jackson, Curry, Coos, Josephine, also Baker, Grant and Union in Eastern Oregon, are all productive of gold. Placer deposits in British Columbia, the Fraser and Stickeen rivers, and on the Yukon, all yield gold. Gold is also produced from rock quartz in Eastern Oregon and in Alaska. Silver in various ores and in lead is found and mined in great quantities in Idaho and elsewhere in the Northwest, and forms a leading industry of the coun- try. Ores of iron, including magnetic bog and hematite varieties, are found in near- ly every portion of the country, and are being worked in several localities.
Oxides and carbonates of copper occur in the southwestern counties, also chromic iron, cinnabar, platinum, tellurium and nickel. In the same region, limestone, hydraulic-cement rock, marble, granite, syenite, building sand-stones and slates, gypsum, asbestos, plumbago, brick and
potters' clays, steatite and glass sand are among the valuable and varied resources of the country. Borax in the purest form, the borate of soda, is found near the sea- coast in Curry county. Chalcedony, sil- icified wood, jasper, carnelians and agates of great beauty are found on the banks of the Columbia and adjacent streams, par- ticularly where the river breaks through the Coast range near Oak Point and Cath- lamet. Coal is mined in a great many localities, from Coos bay to Alaska, and also east of the mountains. The most valuable coals have been found in the western foothills of the Cascades on Puget sound, on Vancouver island near Nanaimo, and at Roslyn, on the eastern slopes of the mountains.
In respect to the forests of the North- west, the extent and value of them have been well published. The great elevated plateau east of the mountains is a tree- less region, covered thinly with sage- brush, bunch-grass, juniper and dwarf pines in places, and with a little willow and cottonwood along the streams. The mountains, however, are well supplied with many varieties of trees found west of the Cascades.
It is in the western division that the flora of the country attains its richest de- velopment, and, with the exception of the Willamette and other smaller valleys, the whole northwest coast is covered with a luxuriant growth of verdure. As the palm is the characteristic tree of the tropics, so is the pine the tree of the North. Chief among the trees of the Northwest is the Douglas spruce or red fir, reaching in fa- vored groves great height and size, and valuable for the uses of man. The red- wood of the California Coast range barely steps over the state line, and its place is at once taken by the white or Oxford cedar, a variety having a very limited habitat in Oregon and found in no other part of the world. This tree having a very thin bark is easily killed by the for- est fires, but still remains standing, dry and sound for many years, and it is curious to see the loggers hauling these hard white trunks to the mill to be made into lumber. The coniferous pines are represented by several species; among which are the sugar, black, silver and yel- low pine. The white, lovely, yellow and ​red fir, the hemlock, spruce, larch, yew, cypress, yellow and red cedar are in great numbers. Many and indeed most of these trees are exceedingly valuable to the uses of man. The deciduous trees in- clude the white, black and yellow oak, the maple, ash, alder and laurel, besides many flowering trees.
The undergrowth in the forests is made up of many flowering trees, shrubs and plants, and the camas and wapato, flower- ing bulbous roots, are common, being used as food by the native tribes and Chinese. Flax is indigenous in Southern Oregon. In addition to the native woods and plants, man has introduced great varieties of each, and such is the adaptability of a generous soil and mild climate that all the trees and plants of the temperate zone and many of the sub-tropical species can be grown in some part of the North- west. Large and varied crops of cereals and fruits are now raised on lands former- ly considered useful only for grazing cat- tle and sheep.
The soil in most portions of the North- west is very productive, as is well known by the large yield of wheat and other cereals grown on certain lands for many successive years, without the application of artificial fertilizers. The fertility of the land is no doubt due in a great meas- ure to the volcanic nature of the country.
The disintegration of various lavas and basalts forms a soil rich in the mineral salts and earths adapted to the nourish- ment of plants and trees. Though the climate is classed as dry, as indicated by instruments used for determining relative humidity, the distinction is applicable only to the atmosphere.
The rainfall is abundant and timely to foster the growth of all plant life, and the undergrowth in the regions west of the Cascade mountains is as dense and impen- etrable, though of far different character, as in the valley of the Orinoco or Amazon rivers.
The waters abound with fish, of which the various species of the salmon family are the most numerous and valued. The sturgeon, one of the oldest types of fishes, surviving the changes of thousands of years, and the taking of which was con- trolled by the royal perquisites of the ancient kings of England, is common —
in fact, is met with every day on the side- walks of our city. The sea is prolific of life; whales pass up and down the coast from their feeding grounds in the Arctic to their breeding grounds in the warm bays of Lower California.
Halibut and herring are caught in great quantities, and the cod-fishing grounds in Behring sea are the largest and richest in the world. Smelt and sardines visit the largest rivers in incredible numbers to deposit their spawn. Oysters, clams and other shell fish inhabit the salt-water bays, and the pholus or rock oyster bores its home in every soft rocky ledge along the coast. . . .
The fauna of the northwest coast is an interesting study, embracing every species known to the temperate zone. The black and cinnamon bear are common, and the formidable grizzly bear may be found in the mountains, if any one cares to go and look for him. The great gray wolf inhab- its the gloomiest forests, but is rarely seen except when driven by deep snows to prey upon herds of sheep or cattle, and that thief of the plains, the coyote or prairie wolf, is common east of the moun- tains. Among the predatory animals may be mentioned the cougar or mountain lion and the Canada lynx or wildcat.
Reindeer, cariboo, elk, the mule and the Virginia deer, and the fleet-footed antelope represent the family of the cer- vidae.
The mouflon or big-horned sheep and the great mountain goat frequent the most inaccessible rocky peaks of the highest mountains, above the limits of perpetual snow. The fur-bearing animals, whose winter coats are sought after by man to make his winter coats, embrace numerous species, as the fur seal, sea and land otter, beaver, fisher mink, the silver, cross and red fox, muskrat and weasel or ermine. Of these animals, the fur seal is by far the most important, the capture of which is likely to lead to serious international complications. The polar bear and walrus inhabit the frozen regions, and are objects of the chase for the Northern coast tribes, and with the confinon or hair seal form their main subsistence. Harmless snakes are numerous west of the mountains, and the rattlesnake is occasionally found in the eastern portion of the country and in ​Southern Oregon. Swans, geese and brant, together with nearly every known species of ducks, cranes, plover, snipe and other wading birds, are found in incredible num- bers, breeding in and migrating to and from various parts of the Northwest.
Eagles, vultures, owls, hawks and buz- zards are numerous, besides great varie- ties of song birds, and the tiny humming- bird flashes its brilliant colors through the foliage of the Alaskan summers. Grouse of several varieties, and quail are plenti- ful.
The Mongolian pheasant has been read- ily acclimated and added to the list of game birds of the country. Very many varieties of this list of animals, birds and fishes are exceedingly valuable to the uses and pursuits of man.
The varieties of the human race, indig- enous to the Northwest, can be placed in two divisions, the Indian and the Aleut or Esquimaux. The vast number of na- tives seen and mentioned by Lewis and Clark, along the shores of the Columbia, have melted away before the advance of civilization like snow before the sun. That great numbers did exist is shown also by the numerous shell heaps, piles of kitchen middens, broken stones, pestles and mor- tars, arrow heads and other implements found at every advantageous point on the rivers and bays along the whole coast. Some of these deposits are laid bare by the washing away of the alluvial banks under which they have been buried for long years, as may be seen in places by the large trees growing directly over the deposits. These natives were always di- vided into numerous tribes, inhabiting a larger or smaller territory, and the tribal divisions were so distinctly marked and had been maintained through so many generations, that the language or dialect of one tribe could not be understood by the other. The different tribes were gen- erally in an attitude of armed peace, or else engaged in active war, the successful contestants carrying off and making slaves of their female captives.
The fishing tribes along the coast were the least warlike or aggressive, and suf- fered from frequent raids and forays of their mountain neighbors. Those tribes of the interior and the North, depending
more on the pursuits of the chase, were more predaceous and warlike.
The Aleuts of the Codiak peninsula and Fox islands were found to resemble in every respect of race, characteristics and mode of life the Esquimaux of the Siberian coast. Ethnologists have found that this race inhabit a circle surrounding the North Pole, and that the race types are well and distinctly marked.
Primeval man or his descendants, the aboriginal races, have, like the native race of animals, been content to pursue a life of nature, hunting, fishing, gather- ing the natural products of the soil and waters, or preying on each other's sub- stance by raids and wars. With civilized man it is far different, and no view of physical geography would be complete without considering the changed aspects of the face of nature produced by the vast workings of civilized man. In the book of Genesis we are told that God gave man dominion over the earth and over every living thing, with the injunction to sub- due it, and man has interpreted the text literally; for, not content with gathering the fruits and killing the animals nature presents for his sustenance, he has entered into a contest not only to take possession of the earth, but to make war upon the operations of nature herself.
Man's vast operations have not yet had the effect upon our Northwest that may be traced in other countries, but give him time and he will no doubt fulfill his con- tract.
The character of a race is largely in- fluenced by its environment. It cannot be doubted that diversity of pursuits and occupation in man leads to difference in character and acquirements. The im- mense hordes of human beings inhabiting the wide steppes of Russia and Siberia, and the vast plains of Tartary, have for ages followed the monotonous life dictated to them by the dreary desolation of their limitless horizon.
A vast expanse of boundless prairie, barely supporting at the most favorable seasons the lives of their cattle and horses, has the natural tendency to repress all ambition and desire for elevation. They have not advanced beyond the semi-civil- ization of their progenitors in the occupa- tion of tending their flocks and herds. ​Their environment offers them no diversity of pursuits.
The physical geography of the Northwest shows a country so rich and varied in diversity of surface, of wide plains, smiling valleys, dense forests, broad rivers and rushing torrents, that the influence of the face of nature is inspiring. We look from some high mountain summit over the grand forests and valleys of our country, watching the clouds chase their shadows across the gorges and canyons, and, as the voices of the swaying pines, the murmur of a torrent or roar of some unseen waterfall falls upon our ear, our minds are full of thoughts that words fail to express. As we turn our faces towards the sublime height of the snow-clad mountains, lifting their peaks far above the limits of all life, our fancy takes us backward; we see again the fiery cones belching forth stones and ashes, and rivers of lava pushing their resistless course through the burning forests, and the sky covered with a sable pall, and our hearts are filled with wonder and awe.
The varied industries necessary to subdue and develop the vast resources of the country will in the future attract men of all professions and artisanships. The herdsman, the farmer, the horticulturist, the miner, the millwright, the engineer, the mechanic and cunning artificer In wood and metal, will all find material ready to his hand.
The physical characteristics of the Northwest, under a careful study of the different subjects, the climate, the soil, the varied products of nature, the inspiring influence of pastoral and sublime scenery on our moral and intellectual natures, all will develop the knowledge that in our country may be found every material and natural resource necessary to the development and well-being of the highest types of the human race.