vergreens.

In descending the eastern slopes of the Cascades the rich, abounding,
triumphant exuberance of the trees is quickly subdued; they become
smaller, grow wide apart, leaving dry spaces without moss covering
or underbrush, and before the foot of the range is reached, fail
altogether, stayed by the drouth of the interior almost as suddenly as
on the western margin they are stayed by the sea. Here and there at wide
intervals on the eastern plains patches of a small pine (Pinus contorta)
are found, and a scattering growth of juniper, used by the settlers
mostly for fence posts and firewood. Along the stream bottoms there is
usually more or less of cottonwood and willow, which, though yielding
inferior timber, is yet highly prized in this bare region. On the Blue
Mountains there is pine, spruce, fir, and larch in abundance for every
use, but beyond this range there is nothing that may be called a forest
in the Columbia River basin, until we reach the spurs of the Rocky
Mountains; and these Rocky Mountain forests are made up of trees which,
compared with the giants of the Pacific Slope, are mere saplings.

XXII. The Forests of Oregon and their Inhabitants

Like the forests of Washington, already described, those of Oregon are
in great part made up of the Douglas spruce [32], or Oregon pine (Abies
Douglasii). A large number of mills are at work upon this species,
especially along the Columbia, but these as yet have made but little
impression upon its dense masses, the mills here being small as compared
with those of the Puget Sound region. The white cedar, or Port Orford
cedar (Cupressus Lawsoniana, or Chamaecyparis Lawsoniana), is one of
the most beautiful of the evergreens, and produces excellent lumber,
considerable quantities of which are shipped to the San Francisco
market. It is found mostly about Coos Bay, along the Coquille River, and
on the northern slopes of the Siskiyou Mountains, and extends down the
coast into California. The silver firs, the spruces, and the colossal
arbor-vitae, or white cedar [33](Thuja gigantea), described in
the chapter on Washington, are also found here in great beauty and
perfection, the largest of these (Picea grandis, Loud.; Abies grandis,
Lindl.) being confined mostly to the coast region, where it attains a
height of three hundred feet, and a diameter of ten or twelve feet. Five
or six species of pines are found in the State, the most important of
which, both as to lum