glowing and immoderate a heat that they could not bear its
vicinity, and, as they related, were alternately frozen and scorched all
night--now roasting at the volcanic fire, and again rushing out to cool
themselves in the sleet and snow.

[Illustration: THE DUKE OF YORK. QUEEN VICTORIA. Puget Sound Chiefs.]

The rocks are volcanic from near the mouth of the Willamette to and above
the Dalles, and geologists suppose that there have been great convulsions
of nature hereabouts in recent geological times. The Indians have
a tradition, indeed, that the river was originally navigable and
unobstructed where now are the Cascades, and that formerly there was a
long, natural tunnel, through which the Columbia passed under a mountain.
They assert that a great earthquake broke down this tunnel, the site
of which they still point out, and that the debris formed the present
obstructions at the Cascades.

Oregon, if one may judge by the fossil remains in Mr. Condon's collection,
seems once to have been inhabited by a great number and variety of
pre-adamite beasts; but the most singular object he has to show is a very
striking ape's head, carved with great spirit and vigor out of hard lava.
This object was found upon the shore of the Columbia by Indians, after
a flood which had washed away a piece of old alluvial bank. The rock of
which it is composed is quite hard; the carving is, as I said, done with
remarkable vigor; and the top of the head is hollowed out, precisely as
the Indians still make shallow depressions in figures and heads which
they carve out of slate, in which to burn what answers in their religious
ceremonies for incense.

But supposing this relic to belong to Oregon--and there is, I was told,
no reason to believe otherwise--where did the Indian who carved it get his
idea of an ape? The Indians of this region, poor creatures that they are,
have still the habit of carving rude figures out of slate and other
soft rocks. They have also the habit of cutting out shallow, dish-like
depressions in the heads of such figures, wherein to burn incense. But
they could not give Mr. Condon any account of the ape's head they brought
him, nor did they recognize its features as resembling any object or
creature familiar to them even by tradition.

The Dalles of the Columbia are simply a succession of falls and rapids,
not reaching over as great a distance as the Cascades, but containing one
feature much more remarkable than any thin