It requires no very profound knowledge of Western geography, no very
lengthy study of the State of Washington, to enable anyone to understand
without difficulty some of the minor reasons why Spokane Falls should
become a great and important city, the metropolis of a vast surrounding
country. A glance at the map will show the mountain range that extends up
through the Idaho Panhandle, and then along the British Columbia frontier,
to the east and north of the city. These mountains are incalculably rich
in ores of all kinds, and would amply suffice to make a Denver of Spokane
Falls, even if she had no other natural resources to draw from. The
Spokane River is the outlet of Lake Coeur d'Alene, a sheet of water sixty
miles by six, which is fed by the St. Joseph, St. Mary and Coeur d'Alene
Rivers, and which flows through a vast plain until it empties its waters
into the Columbia, the Mississippi of the Pacific Coast. From its point
of junction with the Spokane, the Columbia makes a big bend in its course
until the Snake River is reached, when it turns once more westward, and
flows on to empty into the Pacific Ocean. South of the city, stretching
westward for some distance from the mountains, and extending in a
southerly direction to the Clearwater and Snake Rivers, is a vast country
comprising millions of acres, through which the Palouse River and its
tributary streams meander, and which is known as the Palouse Valley, a
country of unlimited agricultural resources. In the center of all this
immense territory is located Spokane Falls, like the hub in the center of
a wheel. The word immense is not used unwittingly, for the mountains and
plains and valleys make up a country that in Europe would be called a
nation, and in New England would form a State. Only a far-off corner of
the Union, it may seem to some readers, yet there are powerful empires
which possess less natural resources than it can call its own. The city
itself lies on both sides of the Spokane River, at the point where that
stream, separated by rocky islands into five separate channels, rushes
onward and downward, at first being merely a series of rapids, and then
tumbling over the rocks in a number of beautiful and useful waterfalls,
until the several streams unite once again for a final plunge of sixty
feet, making a fall of 157 feet in the distance of half a mile. This
waterfall, with its immense power, would alone make a city; engineers
have estimated its force at 90,000 horse-power, and it is so distributed
that it can be easily utilized.
[Illustration: A FISH WHEEL, COLUMBIA RIVER. On the Union Pacific Ry.]
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_Fourth Tour_.--To