and soon found myself during a thunder-storm in the great gap of the Cascade Mountains, through which the mighty Columbia winds its way. The sublime and the romantic appear to have made a grand effort for a magnificent display
in this spot. On both sides of the stream perpendicular walls of rock rise in majestic boldness - small rills and rivulets, innumerable crystalline streams pursue their way; murmuring down on the steep declivities, they rush and leap from cascade to cascade, after a thousand gambols, adding at last their foaming tribute to the turbulent and powerful
stream. The imposing mass of waters has here forced its way between a chain of volcanic towering mountains, advancing headlong with an irresistible impetuosity over rocky reefs and prostrate ruins, for a distance of about four miles; forming the dangerous, and indeed the last remarkable ob
struction - the Grand Cascades of the Columbia. There is an interesting and very plausible Indian account of the formation of these far-famed cascades, on which so much has been said and written, so many conjectures regarding earthslides, sinks or swells, caused by subterraneous volcanic
agents. " Our grandfathers," said an Indian to me, " remember the time when the waters passed here quietly and without obstruction, under a long range of towering and projecting rocks, which, unable to bear their weight any longer, crumbled down, thus stopping up and raising the bed of the river; then it overflowed the great forests of cedar
and pine, which are still to be seen above the cascades." Indeed, the traveler beholds with astonishment a great number of huge trunks of trees, still standing upright in water about
twenty feet deep. No person, in my opinion, can form a just idea of the cause that produced these remarkable changes, without admitting the Indian narrative.
My baggage was soon conveyed to the upper end of the portage. The distance from the cascades to the dalles is about forty-five miles, and is without any obstacle. The mountain scenery on both sides of the river, with its clusters of shrubs, cedars and pines, is truly delightful, heightened