Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1937-05-20
POINTS OF

NO ASS SSA hAAAC0 adO an
average of one and one-half miies
and that it gradually widens to
ABOUT five miles. The visitor will
ask, How did this come about?
The question is a plausible III ana
there should be some answer
1t would seem mat tins occur
red during the peak OF the flood,
wnen the flood stream cut wider
and faster. But below this point
the canyon already cut had Suffl-
cieht capacity to take care of the
extra mount of water, and that
there was a flood OF gigantic size
here can be no question Tor pen
ty of unmistakable signs were
left.
Steamboat Rock stands alone in
the middle of the cou.ee, nearly
nine hundred feet above the cou-
lee floor. 1t might have been pat
termed by the sub fluvial stream
bottom, for stream do pattern
their beds, or it might be the gran
lite hills that cross the coulee just
to the moth of the rock had some
thing to do with it.
Just east of Steamboat Rock is
a truncated hill or rock ole thai
came near being another such
Steamboat rock" 1t was partly
cut around. Then there is Ncrthup
canyon. which in at that
point and extends back some two
or three miles, forming a lateral
cataract. which came near reced-
ing back into the main cou,ee.
However, as the main falls lv.,d-
ed faster. it was finally abandoned
and the coulee was cut back to The
river valley proper.
According to biologists this oc-
CURED during the Spokane Ice
Age. When the Wisconsin Ice came
the coulee was there to take care !
of the flood from it, and none of
the waters reached the older drain
lines to the east. The ice tumbled
over the north walls breaking
them down, which condition can
readily be seen today when COM
pared with the clean-cut wallis be-
low Steamboat Rock.
The ice pushed over the north
wall. filled much of the floor of
the coulee for a considerable time
slid over the top of the GRANTEES,
and IA cam plainly zee their foot
prints In the scorings on the sur
face ad also over the top of Steam
boat Rock. 1t has glacial scorings
on the south end in the bedrock,
Tho top Of the rock contains NOR
aine and plenty of erratics, many
of them weighing tons each. The
granite hills were no doubt the ex-
posed axis of an old mountain
range OF hills submerged during
the basalt overflows and uncover
ed again by the ice age floods.
When the Columbia river was
damned at the head of the coulec
there was D pended condition es-
t%ablished, ons proof of this being
the fossil flora bed just under the
town Of Grand Coulee. Many spec
linens of these have been gathered
and sent to the national museum
for classification. Out of GO ex-
amined, SIS were Identical with
the Latah formation, three are I'M
decided yet, and five entirely new
ones. all belonging to the middle
miocene flora. These leaves are
laid down only in ponds. lakes or
sea bottoms.
Here at the head of the Grand
Coulee 1t seems as though all ma
ture conspired to bring about, at
a later day when needed, the rec
lamation of the Columbia Basin
region. She put in a mighty ice
dam mixed with rock, sand, gravel
and silt, excavated the canyon to
the south of the plateau and into
the basin proper, put in a fine
granite bottom for a dam to tie
to and plenty of gravel and sand
to be used in construction work,
and then departed, leaving work
to be later completed by the skill
Of man.
Today this construction is ac-
tually taking place. Sooner or lat
the waters of the Columbia riv-
or will be pouring through the
and on to the basin to the
south, the most remarkable Sc
1uence in all mans history and in
all nature.
This work Is not being done to
the selfish pride or ambi-
ton of some Pharoah or great
emperor, as things in past ages,
but to serve the common man and
raise the general standard of life.
Frank Mccain.