s, firs, spruces, and the beautiful Oregon larch
(Larix brevifolia), lead into a delightful region. The John Day River
also heads in the Blue Mountains, and flows into the Columbia sixty
miles below the mouth of the Umatilla. Its valley is in great part
fertile, and is noted for the interesting fossils discovered in it by
Professor Condon in sections cut by the river through the overlying lava
beds.

The Deschutes River comes in from the south about twenty miles below the
John Day. It is a large, boisterous stream, draining the eastern slope
of the Cascade Range for nearly two hundred miles, and from the great
number of falls on the main trunk, as well as on its many mountain
tributaries, well deserves its name. It enters the Columbia with a grand
roar of falls and rapids, and at times seems almost to rival the
main stream in the volume of water it carries. Near the mouth of the
Deschutes are the Falls of the Columbia, where the river passes a rough
bar of lava. The descent is not great, but the immense volume of water
makes a grand display. During the flood season the falls are obliterated
and skillful boatmen pass over them in safety; while the Dalles, some
six or eight miles below, may be passed during low water but are
utterly impassable in flood time. At the Dalles the vast river is jammed
together into a long, narrow slot of unknown depth cut sheer down in the
basalt.

This slot, or trough, is about a mile and a half long and about sixty
yards wide at the narrowest place. At ordinary times the river seems to
be set on edge and runs swiftly but without much noisy surging with a
descent of about twenty feet to the mile. But when the snow is melting
on the mountains the river rises here sixty feet, or even more during
extraordinary freshets, and spreads out over a great breadth of massive
rocks through which have been cut several other gorges running parallel
with the one usually occupied. All these inferior gorges now come into
use, and the huge, roaring torrent, still rising and spreading, at
length overwhelms the high jagged rock walls between them, making
a tremendous display of chafing, surging, shattered currents,
counter-currents, and hollow whirls that no words can be made to
describe. A few miles below the Dalles the storm-tossed river gets
itself together again, looks like water, becomes silent, and with
stately, tranquil deliberation goes on its way, out of the gray region
of sage and sand into the Orego