South Pass—Wind River Mountains—Oregon, its three grand divisions.
Having accomplishd my journal of distances from St. Josephs to Oregon
city, I begin my history of Oregon with the South Pass and Wind River
mountains. From descriptions formerly given by some writers of the South
Pass, the reader may be led to suppose that the traveler is to pass
through a tremendous gap of the Rocky mountains, walld in with huge
rocks on its sides, passable only by traversing the bottoms of a stream
of water, which finds its way through the mountains of that place. But
instead of such an appearance as that, on arriving at the culminating
point, he sees before him, on his left and behind, only an undulating
country, difficult probably in many places to pass with wagons, on
account of the roughness and unevenness of the surface of the land, but
destitute entirely of those cragged cliffs and high towring mountains,
which the imagination sometimes pictures out, previous to a perfect
vision of a country scenery.
The surface of the land along the emigrant route at the pass, is
sufficiently uneven to determine within one rod of the culminating
point, after which within a short distance, the road commences a
somewhat rapid descent westward three or four miles, to a spring issuing
from the hills, calld Pacific spring, because its waters are dischargd
westward into the Pacific ocean.
On the right, at the dividing ridge, twelve or fifteen miles north of
the emigrant road, terminate the Wind River range of mountains, calld
also the Rocky mountains. From their southern extremity to a
considerable distance either east or west of the dividing ridge, they
are seen to stretch far away to the north-west, towring high and giving
rise to several important rivers, which traverse the continent, and
terminate, some of them in the Atlantic ocean eastward, and some of them
in the Pacific ocean westward. Although these mountains have many lofty
peaks, yet I believe none of them are sufficiently high to maintain
their glaciers during the whole year, at all times. It is nevertheless
true, that some of their chasms and deep ravines upon their
north-eastern declivities oftentimes have snow lying in them through the
year, yet no point on any one of them, as has been remarkd, is high
enough for the existence of a zone of perpetual frost. This position is
well corroborated, also, from the fact that forests are seen growing,
not only high up their declivities, but entirely upon their summits.
The present country of Oregon, belonging to the U. States, extends from
the dividing ridge or natural division of the waters of the continent,
to the Pacific ocean westward, and in extent north and south, from lat.
42 deg. north to 49 deg. north. It seems to be divided into three grand
divisions, by ranges of parallel mountains from north to south. The
dividing summit of the continent on the east, west of the eastern
division, are the Blue mountains, separating it from the middle,—and
between the middle and western divisions, is the Cascade range of
mountains.
[Illustration: Decorative glyph]