prolongation of the California Coast range, the Northern Pacific line finally terminating at Tacoma on Puget Sound. The great Columbia is the chief river draining the western slopes of the Rockies. It has a broad estuary, and in May, 1792, Captain Robert Gray of Boston, coasting along the shore in his bark "Columbia Rediviva," discovered it, was baffled more than a week before he could cross the shallow bar at its mouth, and gave it the name of his vessel. The Spaniards marked his discovery on one of their maps without any head to the river, recording alongside in Spanish _y-aun se ignora_--meaning "and it is not yet known" where the source of the river is situated. The famous Danish geographer, Malte-Brun, reading this, made the mistake of recognizing the word _ignora_ as Oregon, and published it in the early nineteenth century as the name of the country, to which it has stuck. Thus is Oregon, like California, a name given without meaning. The Columbia is an enormous river, over twelve hundred miles long, rising in Otter Lake, just north of the Dominion boundary, making a long loop up into British America, then coming down into the United States between the Rockies and the Cascades with another broad western loop, and swinging around to the southeast, finally turning westward to form the boundary between Oregon and Washington State to the Pacific. The chief tributary is Snake River, known also as Lewis Fork, which comes out of the western verge of the Yellowstone Park, makes an extensive southern bend through Idaho and is nine hundred miles long, being a most remarkable river. West of the Rockies is an enormous area, estimated at two hundred and fifty thousand square miles, that has been subjected to volcanic action, being overflowed by what is known as the "Columbia lava," in deposits from one-half mile to a mile in thickness. Through this region the Snake River has carved out its extraordinary canyon in places four thousand feet deep, and in some respects rivalling the canyons of the Colorado. Down in the bottom of this gigantic fissure can be seen the ancient rocky formation of the mountains, elsewhere covered by the sheet of lava. The curious sight is also given of various tributaries sinking under the strata of lava and ultimately coming out through the sides of the canyon, pouring their waters down into the main river far below.