MOSSBRAE FALLS ALONG THE SACRAMENTO.—These falls are in the Sacramento River, not far from Upper Soda Springs in northern California. They vary in height from fifty to one hundred feet, and have a spread of nearly half a mile up and down the river. The water is so clear and limpid that it resembles great sheets of glass as it pours over the banks, producing a scene of indescribable beauty. The river at this point is very small, as shown by the photograph, but the scenery is of the most delightful character.
SODA SPRINGS, SACRAMENTO CAÑON.
The Willamette River is particularly beautiful in its upper course, where the scenery is almost a counterpart of that along the Rhine, whereas the Columbia becomes charmingly interesting almost from its mouth, and increases in grandeur as the ascent is made. Indeed, it may with truth be declared that scenically considered, the Columbia is the most delightful river that is known to modern geographers. The shores are mountainous, at times shooting up perpendicularly to amazing heights, and composing miles of solid walls; then again dropping away in level stretches covered with forests of pine, spruce and fir-trees; or revealing cañons down which plunge turbulent tributaries, and giddy waterfalls dancing out of the sky and falling in fleecy sheets so far as to dissolve its vapor. Some of the shore walls are of basalt, of fantastic shapes and brilliant with coloring; and not infrequently solitary columns of very great height are seen standing like sentinels along the water edge, such as Castle Rock, Rooster Rock, and the columnar cliffs of Cape Horn.
The Dalles of the Columbia are as famous as the palisades of the Hudson, while in fact they are much more wonderful, and well worth a trip of thousands of miles to see. They occupy about fifteen miles of the river between Celilo and Dalles Station, and are only 130 feet wide, whereas above and below, the bed of the stream is from 2,000 to 2,500 feet wide. As the river is swollen to extraordinary proportions by rain freshets and the melting of snow in the spring-time, it is not a remarkable thing that during such flood periods the water rises suddenly in this narrow cleft as much as sixty, and even seventy feet. The river itself very commonly rises as much as twenty-five feet, even at its widest places, and hence we may imagine what a raging torrent it becomes; but at low-water the Dalles are a succession of cascades of the most beautiful proportions, rolling in sheets of clearest water, over terraces of stone as regular as though they had been laid by the hand of a mason.
STRAWNAHAN’S FALLS, ON SIDE OF MOUNT HOOD.