"The water in the rivers between Portland and the ocean is at about the usual September stage, but, owing to the absence of any means whatever of dredging the bars, the depth at the three or four shoal places is less than in former seasons. Steamers drawing seventeen or even seventeen and a half feet come up by plowing through a few inches of mud at certain points, but ships have not the force to go through, nor, in many instances, the iron bottoms to stand the rub. It is not safe to load a vessel which must pass down the river more than sixteen feet. The result is, that grain-ships can only be partly loaded here, and must take a large proportion of their cargoes down the river. The American ship Palmyra went down Thursday with 900 tons of a total wheat cargo of 2,200. The bulk of her load--1,300 tons--must be carried down by barges and taken in at Baker's Bay. The Zamora, now taking wheat here, can only be half loaded at her Portland dock. Lighterage costs $1.25 per short ton, or six cents per cental. Thus the Palmyra must pay $1,625 extra because the river is not properly dredged. The average of lighterage this season will be about three cents per cental on all wheat that goes out of the Columbia River." It is not far from the fact that, although from sixty to sixty-five shillings is a well-paying freight for ships from Portland to the United Kingdom, and although abundance of sailing-ships are available from the substitution of steamers in so many parts of the world, yet the actual freight charged has ranged from eighty to eighty-five shillings, this resulting from a combination of causes, of which the charges for pilotage, towage, and lighterage are among the chief. Of course, all these charges come out of the pocket of the producer, and, unless some radical change can be effected, there is no apparent reason why these sums should not be cumulated to such a height as to place the valley farmer on the level of his Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington Territory neighbor, who does not realize for his wheat much over thirty-five cents a bushel on an average market price of seventy-five cents.