The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1871-11-17
From the Overland Monthly
The Willamette Sound.
BY REV. THOMAS coNDoN.

BY REV. THOMAS CoNDoN.
4 desire to study, i'm place. some Of the
evidences of the former recent changes of
level along the coast of Oregon and
Washington, with a view to compare,
and if possible, to connect them with
evidences of like changes in the in
terror, led to a visit to ShOalwater Bay,
an inlet of the coast, a few miles north
of the Columbia river. June, on our
northern coast, is a pleasant season for
such trips, and ours received its full
measure of help from such accessories as
bright sunshine and pure air above Us,
unmeasured wealth of form, color, and
fragrance below.
The ride from the cape at the mouth
of the Columbia to ShOalwater Bay, is
one Of the finest in the country The
road for the greater part, is along the
ocean beach, always strewn with the
numerous wrecks of life east upon its
sands, and often presenting to the natU-
ralist objects of rare interest. An
abrupt turn Of the road island ends this
finest of the beach drives at ten or
twelve miles from the cape. \ short
distance through woods of spruce and
pine, thickly undergrown with rich
variety of Towering shrubs, and the road
opens upon a view of ShOalwater Bay, at
Inc DlE1NNlAl llAAlE AOh II VI w SUI AAtt.
The general outline of the bay, j. in
sight from this point. The bluffs that
define its shores appear, seen northward
fifteen or eighteen miles away, and in
the direction of its southern extension,
ten or twelve miles. At intervals along
this whole shOre-line, one can plainly
discern, from this point of outlook,
what in the distance appear as land
slides, but on nearer approach prove TO
be portions of the blufi-shore, under
mined by the stOrm-surt, and in their
present form showing fine sections of
the strata of which they are composed.
On examining these more closely, one
sees a bank, not Of common earth, but
disposed in stratified layers Of sediment,
once evidently continuous over this
whole region, and of nearly uniform
thickness, now worn away above into 3
rolling surface, yet showing everywhere
a fine persistence in the old water-lines
that ruled its formation. Buried in thi:
mass of sediment, and occasionally
cropping out in exposed sections, ar,
vast beds of sea-shells, so entirely repre-
Senting the life of the seas now around
them, that, when an apparently eXcep-
tiOnal form does appear, memory at once
recalls having seen this exceptional
one somewhere Oh the coast And
yet, indentical in species, as these
shells unquestiOnably are with those
now living in the surrounding waters,
the two sets of conditions are separated
by the whole import of the term fossil. -
The waters that buried there those fossil
shells, and covered them with one hun
dred vertical feet or more Of ocean sedi-
ment, were waters that defined our
northern coast as to have given it far
different outline from that of its present
geography.
In some Of these bluff exposures, their
past record is read in masses of buried
forest trees, trunk, and leaves, and seeds,
so buried in clay, and so well preserved,
that the spruce cone, fragile at all times,
is scarcely discernable from one of last
years fruitage drifting in the neighbor-
ing waters. From the vegetable re-
mains, as from those of the shell-fish,
the same truths are taught, for the trees
are the same in kind as those now
growing on the bluffs one hundred feet
above them, while the waters that COW
cred them there with one hundred feet
Of sediment have passed away. The
fossil story, then, that may be read here.
Is linked to our own times by the same
ness of vegetable and animal life, and
separated from ours by the passing away
VI AAAI elf-Nlliltc AN MlllNll It's IEtOItlE were
written. 1t is useless to ask how long
ago? There is no chronological record
legible here Future discoveries may
connect these things with human story.
We may not attempt this now.
The marine remains of these bluffs
plainly prove that when they lived, the
waters around them were at, or near,
their present level. They are a species
that love shoal water, and they are in
place where found. The oyster is very
abundant among them, and the shells of
most OF them are neither broken apaTt
nor water-worn, as they would be if
drifted here from some other locality.
They evidently lie here as fossils, on the
same bed they occupied while living;
and oysters then, as now, rarely bed i'm
waters more than a few feet in depth.
The common cOckle-another lover of
the shoalwater-isals also abundant among
these remains, and, like the oyster, lies
fossil where it lived; the opposite valves
often now occupying the very positions,
relatively, that they held while living.
80, too, with the members of the clam
family, whether mactra, or sOleu, or
Nenus-all are evidently in their native
beds, where they lived and died. We
conclude that when these shell-fish lived,
the surrounding waters held nearly their
present level.
Ahother truth plainly taught i'm these
8 'ullled bluffs is this; the waters here
MI eo,.lhe aiterward much higher, or,
n,n ,,,oiS exactly the land lower. Nor than
6ad hundred hundred feet, certainly. for a strait
,oe1lIiieht Of one hundred faot in
iIae as now seen in Some ,f a.
r;,oaI -.iiat' for instance noar Nsii',I,
IlNeT-would Require ~. near Nurtn
uepth OF water to ul,ca - thah that
,,-or-a,,t -. i 50 line in material a.. -
stad I..i 1ie Sohvletion that II o,, 90 70
lsted evenly distributed over ~ tbil 1ilee & e&-
region, bay and all. The n,.ll Snis whole
too, have i'll them the fineist ~ 81 layers,
and the fewest fossils. Both faas' erlals
eating increasing depth of water IL indl- ~
upper beds were deposited. " the
Yet, another plain truth is la,,;,.,.
written here; the changes indieats5 !.
depth of water over this place W.
quiet changes. Any sudden catastronb
would leave signs of violence, and con
sequent strong current; but nothing Z
the kind appears there. The fragil
cone of the spruce tree of the period
buried in that sediment, is found TODAY
among these shells, as little marred b
time as the shells themselves. The lin
oi deposit along that sheltered bay, as i
was at its deepest stage of water, is nov
as unbroken as it was then. Neithe
the violence Of earthquake, nor the sud