Situation of the Columbia River.--Qualities of its Soil.--Climate,
&c.--Vegetable and Animal Productions of the Country.
The mouth of the Columbia river is situated in 46° 19' north latitude,
and 125° or 126° of longitude west of the meridian of Greenwich. The
highest tides are very little over nine or ten feet, at its entrance,
and are felt up stream for a distance of twenty-five or thirty leagues.
During the three years I spent there, the cold never was much below the
freezing point; and I do not think the heat ever exceeded 76°. Westerly
winds prevail from the early part of spring, and during a part of the
summer; that wind generally springs up with the flood tide, and tempers
the heat of the day. The northwest wind prevails during the latter part
of summer and commencement of autumn. This last is succeeded by a
southeast wind, which blows almost without intermission from the
beginning of October to the end of December, or commencement of January.
This interval is the rainy season, the most disagreeable of the year.
Fogs (so thick that sometimes for days no object is discernible for five
or six hundred yards from the beach), are also very prevalent.
The surface of the soil consists (in the valleys) of a layer of black
vegetable mould, about five or six inches thick at most; under this
layer is found another of gray and loose, but extremely cold earth;
below which is a bed of coarse sand and gravel, and next to that pebble
or hard rock. On the more elevated parts, the same black vegetable mould
is found, but much thinner, and under it is the trap rock. We found
along the seashore, south of Point Adams, a bank of earth white as
chalk, which we used for white-washing our walls. The natives also
brought us several specimens of blue, red and yellow earth or clay,
which they said was to be found at a great distance south; and also a
sort of shining earth, resembling lead ore.[V] We found no limestone,
although we burnt several kilns, but never could get one ounce of lime.
[Footnote V: Plumbago.]
We had brought with us from New York a variety of garden seeds, which
were put in the ground in the month of May, 1811, on a rich piece of
land laid out for the purpose on a sloping ground in front of our
establishment. The garden had a fine appearance in the month of August;
but although the plants were left in the ground until December, not one
of them came to maturity, with the exception of the radishes, the
turnips, and the potatoes. The turnips grew to a prodigious size; one of
the largest we had the curiosity to weigh and measure; its circumference
was thirty-three inches, its weight fifteen and a half pounds. The
radishes were in full blossom in the month of December, and were left in
the ground to perfect the seeds for the ensuing season, but they were
all destroyed by the ground mice, who hid themselves under the stumps
which we had not rooted out, and infested our garden. With all the care
we could bestow on them during the passage from New York, only twelve
potatoes were saved, and even these so shrivelled up, that we despaired
of raising any from the few sprouts that still gave signs of life.
Nevertheless we raised one hundred and ninety potatoes the first season,
and after sparing a few plants for our inland traders, we planted about
fifty or sixty hills, which produced five bushels the second year; about
two of these were planted, and gave us a welcome crop of fifty bushels
in the year 1813.
It would result from these facts, that the soil on the banks of the
river, as far as tide water, or for a distance of fifty or sixty miles,
is very little adapted for agriculture; at all events, vegetation is
very slow. It may be that the soil is not everywhere so cold as the spot
we selected for our garden, and some other positions might have given a
better reward for our labor: this supposition is rendered more than
probable when we take into consideration the great difference in the
indigenous vegetables of the country in different localities.
The forest trees most common at the mouth of the river and near our
establishment, were cedar, hemlock, white and red spruce, and alder.
There were a few dwarf white and gray ashes; and here and there a soft
maple. The alder grows also to a very large size; I measured some of
twelve to fifteen inches diameter; the wood was used by us in
preference, to make charcoal for the blacksmith's forge. But the largest
of all the trees that I saw in the country, was a white spruce: this
tree, which had lost its top branches, and bore evident marks of having
been struck by lightning, was a mere, straight trunk of about eighty to
one hundred feet in height; its bark whitened by age, made it very
conspicuous among the other trees with their brown bark and dark
foliage, like a huge column of white marble. It stood on the slope of a
hill immediately in the rear of our palisades. Seven of us placed
ourselves round its trunk, and we could not embrace it by extending our
arms and touching merely the tips of our fingers; we measured it
afterward in a more regular manner, and found it forty-two feet in
circumference. It kept the same size, or nearly the same, to the very
top.
We had it in contemplation at one time to construct a circular staircase
to its summit, and erect a platform thereon for an observatory, but more
necessary and pressing demands on our time made us abandon the project.
A short distance above Astoria, the oak and ash are plentiful, but
neither of these is of much value or beauty.
From the middle of June to the middle of October, we had abundance of
wild fruit; first, strawberries, almost white, small but very sweet;
then raspberries, both red and orange color. These grow on a bush
sometimes twelve feet in height: they are not sweet, but of a large
size.
The months of July and August furnish a small berry of an agreeable,
slightly acid flavor; this berry grows on a slender bush of some eight
to nine feet high, with small round leaves; they are in size like a wild
cherry: some are blue, while others are of a cherry red: the last being
smaller; they have no pits, or stones in them, but seeds, such as are to
be seen in currants.
I noticed in the month of August another berry growing in bunches or
grapes like the currant, on a bush very similar to the currant bush: the
leaves of this shrub resemble those of the laurel: they are very thick
and always green. The fruit is oblong, and disposed in two rows on the
stem: the extremity of the berry is open, having a little speck or tuft
like that of an apple. It is not of a particularly fine flavor, but it
is wholesome, and one may eat a quantity of it, without inconvenience.
The natives make great use of it; they prepare it for the winter by
bruising and drying it; after which it is moulded into cakes according
to fancy, and laid up for use. There is also a great abundance of
cranberries, which proved very useful as an antiscorbutic.
We found also the whortleberry, chokecherries, gooseberries, and black
currants with wild crab-apples: these last grow in clusters, are of
small size and very tart. On the upper part of the river are found
blackberries, hazel-nuts, acorns, &c. The country also possesses a great
variety of nutritive roots: the natives make great use of those which
have the virtue of curing or preventing the scurvy. We ate freely of
them with the same intention, and with the same success. One of these
roots, which much resembles a small onion, serves them, in some sort, in
place of cheese. Having gathered a sufficient quantity, they bake them
with red-hot stones, until the steam ceases to ooze from the layer of
grass and earth with which the roots are covered; then they pound them
into a paste, and make the paste into loaves, of five or six pounds
weight: the taste is not unlike liquorice, but not of so sickly a
sweetness. When we made our first voyage up the river the natives gave
us square biscuits, very well worked, and printed with different
figures. These are made of a white root, pounded, reduced to paste, and
dried in the sun. They call it _Chapaleel_: it is not very palatable;
nor very nutritive.
But the principal food of the natives of the Columbia is fish. The
salmon-fishery begins in July: that fish is here of an exquisite flavor,
but it is extremely fat and oily; which renders it unwholesome for those
who are not accustomed to it, and who eat too great a quantity: thus
several of our people were attacked with diarrhoea in a few days after
we began to make this fish our ordinary sustenance; but they found a
remedy in the raspberries of the country which have an astringent
property.
The months of August and September furnish excellent sturgeon. This fish
varies exceedingly in size; I have seen some eleven feet long; and we
took one that weighed, after the removal of the eggs and intestines,
three hundred and ninety pounds. We took out nine gallons of roe. The
sturgeon does not enter the river in so great quantities as the salmon.
In October and November we had salmon too, but of a quite different
species--lean, dry and insipid. It differs from the other sort in form
also; having very long teeth, and a hooked nose like the beak of a
parrot. Our men termed it in derision "seven bark salmon," because it
had almost no nutritive substance.
February brings a small fish about the size of a sardine. It has an
exquisite flavor, and is taken in immense quantities, by means of a
scoop net, which the Indians, seated in canoes, plunge into the schools:
but the season is short, not even lasting two weeks.
The principal quadrupeds of the country are the elk, the black and white
tailed deer; four species of bear, distinguished chiefly by the color of
the fur or _poil_, to wit, the black, brown, white and grisly bear; the
grisly bear is extremely ferocious; the white is found on the seashore
toward the north; the wolf, the panther, the catamount, the lynx, the
raccoon, the ground hog, opossum, mink, fisher, beaver, and the land and
sea otter.[W] The sea otter has the handsomest fur that is known; the
skin surpasses that of the land variety in size and in the beauty of the
_poil_; the most esteemed color is the silver gray, which is highly
prized in the Indies, and commands a great price.
[Footnote W: Horses are abundant up the river; but they are not
indigenous to the country. They will be spoken of in a future chapter.]
The most remarkable birds are the eagle, the turkey-buzzard, the hawk,
pelican, heron, gull, cormorant, crane, swan, and a great variety of
wild ducks and geese. The pigeon, woodcock, and pheasant, are found in
the forests as with us.