East of the Blue Mountains is found, among others, the Powder River Valley. This is in the western part of Baker County and partly in Union County. On the north and east a steep hill-side separates it from the Grand Ronde Valley; on the south and west rises the spur of the Blue Mountain range. The valley is about twenty-four miles long by twelve wide, thus covering two hundred and ninety square miles. The lands in this valley may be taken as a type of similar valleys in Eastern Oregon. They may be divided into three classes. First, the bottom-lands pure and simple. These consist of alluvial soil of abundant depth and richness; the only question an intending settler need ask is whether they are subject to inundation from the overflow of the river, which invariably is found running through the whole length. Above the bottom-lands, and far exceeding them in extent, are the foothills, yielding in this instance fully one hundred and eighty square miles of excellent grain-producing lands, and adapted in all respects to farming purposes. And above these again rise the hills for pasturage, and only useful for grain-growing where facilities for irrigation can be found. The character of bareness does not apply to these hill-sides; the alkaline soil does not extend to them, and a richer vegetation, in which other native grasses and spreading plants come to the aid of the predominating bunch-grass, affords food to sheep and cattle all the summer through. [Sidenote: _SNAKE RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES._] All the tributaries of the Snake River from the Oregon side run through a country of a somewhat similar character, and each of these streams is the source of life and vegetation. Among these other valleys may be named the Lower Powder River, Eagle Creek, Pine Creek, Upper Burnt River, Upper and Lower Willow Creek, and the Malheur. This last requires separate mention. It runs through the boundaries of the Malheur Indian reservation, now shortly to be thrown open to settlement, and offering about three million acres of fertile and desirable land. The Malheur River runs from the Harney Lake Valley to the Snake. This last-named valley is about sixty miles long by twenty wide; and this area of twelve hundred square miles is mainly covered with a growth of grass so tall that a man riding through it on horseback in August can tie the heads of the wild-rye together over his head, or, to use another illustration, sufficiently high and dense to hide completely a horseman who diverges from the road or track. With the wild-rye are mixed bunch-grass, blue-joint, and quantities of the wild-pea vine. And the country north and south of it, though bare, is not barren and mountainous; but in the spring and summer, before the grass is up to its full height, a man can ride and even drive his wagon, day in and day out, until he gets out of the boundaries of Oregon.