But the success of the breakwater constructed by the United States engineers from cheap material, available on the spot, has been sufficiently marked to encourage the requests for further appropriations until the plans are executed in their entirety, and the opening of the harbor carried still farther out to sea. It is reported now (in the spring of 1881) that the north sand-spit is being cut through by the current in the direction indicated by the lines of the breakwater, and that deeper and more constant water is found than heretofore--a good augury of success for similar works where the obstructions are not so shifting as sand alone, and where they are free from the influence of the sand tracts to the north, whence so much of the obstruction to Coos Bay entrance came. And this is our happy case at Yaquina. The Umpqua River is the largest river that, rising in the Cascades, and draining a large and fertile valley in its course, flows directly into the Pacific, after cutting its channel through the Coast Range. There is a wide and very shifting bar at its mouth, through which the usual channel gives twelve or thirteen feet at low water. The river is navigable for all vessels which can cross the bar as far as Gardner City, five miles from the mouth, while smaller vessels can get as far as Scottsburg, twenty-five miles up. Douglas County, now possessing a population of 9,596, is capable of sustaining a vastly increased number. It lies almost surrounded by mountains, but with a good outlet to the north along the valley lands through which the Oregon and California Railroad runs. It is well watered throughout by the Umpqua and its tributaries, while the northern portion of the county forms the head of the great Willamette, the aggregate of many creeks and streams having here their rise. The climate of Jackson County is a good deal warmer than its mere geographical relations to the counties on the north and east of it would account for. Indian corn is a staple crop, and peaches and vines flourish exceedingly. The sun seems to have more power; and I have a vivid remembrance of heat and dust along its roads. [Sidenote: _THE LAKE COUNTRY._] Lake County is well named. Huge depressions in the land are filled with the Upper and Lower Klamath Lakes, the latter crossing the California boundary-line. North of the Upper Klamath Lake, again, some twenty miles, is the Klamath Marsh, doubtless not long since another lake--now, in summer, the feeding-ground for cattle, in winter the home of innumerable flocks of migratory birds. Between the Upper and Lower Klamath Lakes runs a rapid water-course. The town of Linkville stands on its banks. I am told that there is water-power enough here to drive as many mills as are found at Lowell, Massachusetts. At Linkville is the land-office for Southern Oregon.