{228} On the south side of the Columbia, at the Cascades, a range of low mountains puts off from the President’s range, and running down parallel to the river, terminates in a point of land on which Astoria was built. Its average height is about one thousand five hundred feet above the river. Near the Cascades the tops are higher; and in some instances are beautifully castellated. They are generally covered with dense pine and fir forests. From the north side of the Cascades, a similar range runs down to the sea, and terminates in Cape Disappointment.[36] This range also is covered with forests. Another range runs on the brink of the coast, from Cape Mendocino in Upper California to the Straits de Fuca. This is generally bare of trees; mere masses of dark stratified rocks, piled many hundred feet in height. It rises immediately from the borders of the sea, and preserves nearly a right line course, during their entire length. The lower portion of the eastern sides is clothed with heavy pine and spruce, fir and cedar forests. I have described in previous pages the great southern branch of the Columbia, called Saptin by the natives who live on its banks, and the valley of volcanic deserts, through which it runs, as well as the Columbia {229} and its cavernous vale, from its junction with the Saptin to Fort Vancouver, ninety miles from the sea. I shall therefore in the following notice of the rivers of Oregon, speak only of those parts of this and other streams, and their valleys about them, which remain undescribed. That portion of the Columbia, which lies above its junction with the Saptin, latitude forty-six degrees eight minutes north, is navigable for bateaux to the boat encampment at the base of the Rocky Mountains, about the fifty-third degree of north latitude, a distance, by the course of the stream, of about five hundred miles.[37] The current is strong, and interrupted by five considerable and several lesser rapids, at which there are short portages. The country on both sides of the river, from its junction with the Saptin to the mouth of the Spokan, is a dreary waste. The soil is a light yellowish composition of sand and clay, generally destitute of vegetation. In a few nooks, irrigated by mountain streams, are found small patches of the short grass of the plains interspersed with another species which grows in tufts or bunches four or five feet in height. A few shrubs (as the small willow, the sumac, and furze), appear in distant and solitary {230} groups. There are no trees; generally nothing green; a mere brown drifting desert; as far as the Oakanagan River, two hundred and eight miles, a plain, the monotonous desolation of which is relieved only by the noble river running through it, and an occasional cliff of volcanic rocks bursting through its arid surface.