n woods. Thirty-five or forty miles below
the Dalles are the Cascades of the Columbia, where the river in passing
through the mountains makes another magnificent display of foaming,
surging rapids, which form the first obstruction to navigation from the
ocean, a hundred and twenty miles distant. This obstruction is to be
overcome by locks, which are now being made.

Between the Dalles and the Cascades the river is like a lake a mile or
two wide, lying in a valley, or canyon, about three thousand feet deep.
The walls of the canyon lean well back in most places, and leave here
and there small strips, or bays, of level ground along the water's
edge. But towards the Cascades, and for some distance below them, the
immediate banks are guarded by walls of columnar basalt, which are worn
in many places into a great variety of bold and picturesque forms, such
as the Castle Rock, the Rooster Rock, the Pillars of Hercules, Cape
Horn, etc., while back of these rise the sublime mountain walls,
forest-crowned and fringed more or less from top to base with pine,
spruce, and shaggy underbrush, especially in the narrow gorges and
ravines, where innumerable small streams come dancing and drifting down,
misty and white, to join the mighty river. Many of these falls on both
sides of the canyon of the Columbia are far larger and more interesting
in every way than would be guessed from the slight glimpses one gets
of them while sailing past on the river, or from the car windows. The
Multnomah Falls are particularly interesting, and occupy fern-lined
gorges of marvelous beauty in the basalt. They are said to be about
eight hundred feet in height and, at times of high water when the
mountain snows are melting, are well worthy of a place beside the famous
falls of Yosemite Valley.

According to an Indian tradition, the river of the Cascades once flowed
through the basalt beneath a natural bridge that was broken down
during a mountain war, when the old volcanoes, Hood and St. Helen's, on
opposite sides of the river, hurled rocks at each other, thus forming
a dam. That the river has been dammed here to some extent, and within
a comparatively short period, seems probable, to say the least, since
great numbers of submerged trees standing erect may be found along both
shores, while, as we have seen, the whole river for thirty miles above
the Cascades looks like a lake or mill-pond. On the other hand, it is
held by some that the submerged groves wer