The Albany register. [volume] (Albany, Or.) 1868-18??, 1871-07-08
JOrTaNGs.

A
high water, and the water was decidedly
high when your correspondent passed
the rising city of Kalama Appearances
indicated considerable floating property
thereabouts, aud if water lots are the
most valuable real estate in q commercial
point of view, the owners of property in
Kalama, near the river, must have been
peculiarly Fortunate. The waters of the
Pacific have embraced the Western end
of the Northern Pacific Railroad-have
regularly immersed it; may it be more
auspicious omen than it appeared to us
as We looked at the place where the track
lay submerged.
The scenery of the lower Columbia is
not unlike that of the st. Lawrence be.
low Montreal, similar evergreen vege-
tation, the same bluffy banks, sometimes
receding so as to form some bottom land,
but oftener coming close up to the waters
edge, and similar majestic river fow
ing to the sea.
During our stay at Astoria, we spent
one long to be-remembered day in a trip
to Cape Disappointment and of all
her places we think it wrongly named.
We have seen something of the world,
and our humble opinion is, that one
must be we'll satiated with travel aud pic
nicing who cannot spend day at the
Cape, pleasantly and without disappoint
naent. Uncle Sam has built suugsery
in nook on Bakers Bay, and here we
found Co f., End u S. Artillery, sta
toned; they had just been changed from
Alaska pleasant change one would
think, although some Of them spoke very
favorably OF the climate they had left.
OF course several gentlenlanly men were
soon at our service as guides, and our
party started ON tour of inspection to
the batteries, the light house and the
life boat. A point OF the Cape makes
round the South and partsof the east
side of Bakers Bay, SO that it is really
surrounded on more than three sides.
We landed at the south end of the Bay,
and took up our line of march for the
'sleft battery" which is on the extreme
southeast corner of the Cape. Here are
some five or six ten-inch guns, all mount
ed aud to our s'critical eyes" (for We
know the muzzle of a gun from the
breech) they are in good order. uere
| is the magazine, we were told, at the end
of a long, narrow, dark, underground
nothing to see. Piles of solid shot and
shell in the Symmetrical triangular
pyramids were all around US, looking
inert and harmless. From this battery
the company practice twice week; the
target is on Sand island "a kind of eleva-
ton of the bar-three miles off. 1t is Of
wood, twenty feet square, whitewashed
to make it more conspicuous. The center
battery is west aud south of this, the
same kind Of guns, but fewer, only four,
SO there was not much to interest us, and
we passed TO the right, or lighthouse
battery, of eight guns, Eve ten inch, rifed,
and one monster gun of 6ftecn-inch
calibre. They say that with the Parrot,
guns they could make it pretty warm for
Fort Stevens, seven miles distant across
the channel. The PARROT guns carry
either solid shot, time shells or percus-
sion shells. There is much of interest
clustering around the defenees of our
country, but we were not sorry to turn
from these means of destroying life and
property, and see the provision made foI
saving both. The light house stands
close by the right battery; the promon-
tory is two OF three hundred feet above
the beach below, and the light is some
forty feet above the ground. Through
| the kindness of Mr.. Munson, the keeper
we we're allowed to go over the building
The light is that known as the ''Fresnef
light. The object is to gather all the
rays that come from the burner, and By
means of an arrangement of prisms
magnify and send them away in horizon'
tai beams. The burner is an organd
aud so arranged as to keep the wick
fully supplied with oil, and to signal, BY
sounding bell, any lack in the reser.
yoir. We amused ourselves for some
time looking at each other through the
reflector, or rather refractor. The effect
is somewhat startling. My yis-a-vis was
! lady, and if high hats without any par
ticular shape about the rim are the style,
she appeared just so; high forehead
/ eyes that did more than stare, nose and
chin of unknown length, and when my
| good-iooks provoked her to smile audi.
bly,, her countenance became open beyond
description. We might moralize abou,
seeing people through false media, bui