The Northern Pacific Railway, the next route northward, after
following up the Yellowstone River to Livingston, at the entrance to
Yellowstone Park in Montana, ascends the Belt Mountains, crossing them
through Bozeman Tunnel at an elevation of nearly fifty-six hundred
feet. This range is an outlying eastern spur of the Rockies. The road
passes the mining town of Butte, there being forty thousand people in
the neighboring settlements. Here are many gold, silver and copper
mines, including the great Anaconda Mine, which was sold in 1898 to
the company at present working it for $45,000,000, the product of the
mine being silver and copper. The Butte copper output is two hundred
and fifty million pounds annually, and the smelting-works at Anaconda
are the largest in the world. At Three Forks, not far away, is the
confluence of the Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin Rivers, forming the
Missouri. Beyond is Helena, the capital of Montana, built in the
Prickly Pear Valley near the eastern base of the main Rocky Mountain
range and having fifteen thousand population. This is in another rich
mining district, and the "Last Chance Gulch," running through the
city, has yielded over $30,000,000 gold, while all around are gold,
silver, copper and lead-deposits. Twenty-four miles from Helena, the
main range of the Rockies is crossed by the Mullen's Pass tunnel at
fifty-five hundred and fifty feet elevation. At Gold Creek in the
valley beyond, the last golden spike of the Northern Pacific Railway
was driven in September, 1883, uniting the tracks which had advanced
from the east and west and met there. President Henry Villard made
this the occasion of great festivity, bringing many train-loads of
distinguished men to the ceremony, and shortly afterwards the company,
which was heavily in debt, went into a Receivership. The railroad
follows the Missoula and Pend d'Oreille (the "earring") Rivers, which
unite in Clark's Fork, a tributary of the Columbia River, and enters
Idaho, "the gem of the mountains," or, as called by the Nez Perces,
_Edah-hoe_; finally coming to Spokane in Washington State. This busy
manufacturing town of over twenty thousand people was burnt in 1889,
but has entirely recovered from the calamity. The Spokane River
descends one hundred and fifty feet in two falls within the town,
furnishing an admirable water-power. To the southwest is the
confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers, and beyond, the railway
penetrates the defiles of the Cascade Mountains, the northern
prolongation of the California Coast range, the Northern Pacific line
finally terminating at Tacoma on Puget Sound.
The great Columbia is the chief river draining the western slopes of
the Rockies. It has a broad estuary, and in May, 1792, Captain Robert
Gray of Boston, coasting along the shore in his bark "Columbia
Rediviva," discovered it, was baffled more than a week before he could
cross the shallow bar at its mouth, and gave it the name of his
vessel. The Spaniards marked his discovery on one of their maps
without any head to the river, recording alongside in Spanish _y-aun
se ignora_--meaning "and it is not yet known" where the source of the
river is situated. The famous Danish geographer, Malte-Brun, reading
this, made the mistake of recognizing the word _ignora_ as Oregon, and
published it in the early nineteenth century as the name of the
country, to which it has stuck. Thus is Oregon, like California, a
name given without meaning. The Columbia is an enormous river, over
twelve hundred miles long, rising in Otter Lake, just north of the
Dominion boundary, making a long loop up into British America, then
coming down into the United States between the Rockies and the
Cascades with another broad western loop, and swinging around to the
southeast, finally turning westward to form the boundary between
Oregon and Washington State to the Pacific. The chief tributary is
Snake River, known also as Lewis Fork, which comes out of the western
verge of the Yellowstone Park, makes an extensive southern bend
through Idaho and is nine hundred miles long, being a most remarkable
river. West of the Rockies is an enormous area, estimated at two
hundred and fifty thousand square miles, that has been subjected to
volcanic action, being overflowed by what is known as the "Columbia
lava," in deposits from one-half mile to a mile in thickness. Through
this region the Snake River has carved out its extraordinary canyon in
places four thousand feet deep, and in some respects rivalling the
canyons of the Colorado. Down in the bottom of this gigantic fissure
can be seen the ancient rocky formation of the mountains, elsewhere
covered by the sheet of lava. The curious sight is also given of
various tributaries sinking under the strata of lava and ultimately
coming out through the sides of the canyon, pouring their waters down
into the main river far below.
Within this canyon the Snake River goes over the noted Shoshoné
Falls, a series of cataracts. The first one is the Twin Falls
descending one hundred and eighty feet, then the river goes down the
Bridal Veil of eighty feet descent, and finally it pours in grandeur
over the great Shoshoné Falls, nearly a thousand feet wide, and
descending two hundred and ten feet, a most magnificent cataract.
After the confluence with the Columbia, the latter river leaves the
region of sands and lava for the rocks and mountains, and here are the
Dalles. These are mainly flagstones that make troughs and fissures,
and compress the channel. At first the river, a mile wide, goes over a
wall twenty feet high and stretching completely across, and the
enormous current is compressed not far below into a narrow pass only a
hundred and thirty feet wide and nearly three miles long, encompassed
by high perpendicular cliffs of such regular formation that they seem
as if constructed of masonry. The Dalles make crooked, trough-like
channels through which the waters wildly rush. The amazing way in
which the agile fish are able to ascend these rapids and cataract
through all the turmoil, seeking the quiet river reaches above, caused
the Indians to call the place the Salmon Falls. Here is the town of
the Dalles, the supplying market for the Idaho mining district, an
active manufacturing place with five thousand people. There are
various islands in these rapids, most of them having been used for
Indian burial-places and some having numerous graves. Below, the
Columbia presents very fine scenery in passing the defiles of the
Cascade Mountains, and to the southward is the noble form of Mount
Hood, rising over eleven thousand feet, displaying glaciers and having
snow-covered peaks all about. At the Cascade Locks the Columbia
descends another rapid, where huge rocks buffet the turbulent waters,
the whirling foaming torrent wildly rushing among them. Here the
descent is twenty-five feet, and the Government has improved the
navigation by a spacious ship canal a mile long, built at a cost of
$4,000,000. Enormous cliffs, some of grand and imposing form, environ
the river in passing through these Cascade Mountains, some rising
twenty-five hundred feet. We are told these mountains were first named
from the numerous cascades which pour in from tributary streams coming
over the cliffs and through the crevices of this tremendous chasm.
Often a dozen of these fairy waterfalls can be seen in a single river
reach, some dissolving into spray before half-way down, others
stealing through crooked crannies, and many being tiny threads of
glistening foam apparently frozen to the mountain side. Here is
Undine's Veil pouring over a broader ledge, and the Oneonta, Horse
Tail, La Tourelle and Bridal Veil cataracts, with the far-famed
Multnomah Fall, the most beautiful of all, eight hundred feet high,
descending with graceful gentleness over the massive cliffs a long and
filmy yet matchless thread of silver spray. Emerging, the Columbia
receives the Willamette River, coming up from the south on the western
verge of the Cascades, and then proceeds grandly by its broad estuary
to the Pacific.
Near the Canadian border the Great Northern Railway crosses the
continent, surmounting the Rockies at the lowest elevation of any of
the transcontinental lines. Starting from St. Paul, it traverses the
Devil's Lake country in Montana, passes Fort Buford on the Upper
Missouri, and crosses the Rockies at fifty-two hundred feet elevation.
Beyond is the Kootenay gold district, and the road comes to Spokane,
crosses the Columbia River and surmounts the Cascades at thirty-three
hundred and seventy-five feet elevation, the mountain top being
pierced by a three-mile tunnel. Then traversing sixty miles of fine
forests, the railway terminates at Everett on Puget Sound.