Just where the mouth opens to the ocean is the reef, of soft sandstone rock, rising in intervals of separate rocks to within ten or eleven feet of low-water mark—that is to say, each of the three channels through the reef, north, middle, and south, gives this depth of water. But here the water, which has kept clear and deep the channel of a quarter of a mile wide or thereabout, expands to a width of about two miles. Consequently, the current is not sufficiently strong in any one of the three channels to prevent the piling of the sand against the rock outside and in, in a gentle rise from the forty-feet depth outside to the height of the rocky reef, and similarly from the thirty feet inside the reef.
The engineers propose, by a jetty from the south beach to a group of rocks forming the south side of the middle channel, to extend the narrow deep channel inside, and the consequent force of concentrated tidal and river water, up to the rocky reef itself. They judge that the tidal force is ample to scour away clean all the sand deposited both in and outside the reef. They propose, then, to blast away the rock itself from the middle channel, which, as the obstruction is both soft and narrow, will be neither a difficult nor costly operation, and they intend thus to open to the commerce of the world the calm and deep waters of the harbor, which will suffice to receive all the fleet of vessels trading to this coast.
The construction of the jetty is proceeding rapidly by means of large mattresses of brushwood sunk in the destined position, loaded with rock and attracting and retaining the sand, and covered in, when the needed breadth and height are gained, with larger rocks brought down from a quarry of hard stone about eight miles up the harbor.
No one who, like the present writer, has often tried to stem the tidal current sweeping out to sea, can doubt the force and velocity it will bring to bear; and no one familiar with Yaquina doubts the anticipated success of the improvement. Once gained, it will be permanent, and then half an hour will suffice to tug the arriving vessel from the deep waters of the Pacific to her station alongside her wharf, and the same time will dispatch her, fully loaded, on her voyage.
To sum up this matter: At present a very large portion of the profits of farming and of other industries in Oregon goes into the pockets of the transportation company. The rates of freight bear no proportion to the benefits obtained, but are fixed simply on the principle of sitting down to pencil out a list to see how much the farmers can possibly pay. If this state of things were to be indefinitely perpetuated, the outlook would be dreary. That a radical change is impending is to me clear. The country is too rich in productive powers, the citizens are too fully awake to the needs of their position, the knowledge of what Oregon is and what she wants is too widely spread, and the president of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company has trumpeted forth the enormous profits of his corporation too loudly, for the failure of the efforts now in progress to introduce competition in the carrying-trade. So that I, for one, am at rest as to the result. Oregon will take her own part in the general movement, now current throughout the United States, to regulate, if not to curtail, the powers of the corporations.
But I have confidence in the steady and peaceful character of her population not to carry this matter here to extremes, which might unduly burden associated capital, and check the flow of its full current to our State.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Emigration to Oregon—Who should not come—Free advice and no fees— English emigrants—Farmers—Haste to be rich—Quoted experiences—Cost and ways of coming—Sea-routes—Railroads—Baggage—What not to bring —What not to forget—Heavy property—The Custom-house—San Francisco hotels—Conclusion.
The question most often asked and most difficult to answer is, "Do you advise me to come out to Oregon?" It is easy to say who should not come. We want no waifs and strays of civilization, enervated with excesses, or depressed with failure; men who can find no niche for themselves, who have neither the habit, the disposition, nor the education for work. We want none of those youngsters who have tried this, have failed in that, until their friends say in disgust, "Oh, ship them to Oregon, and let them take their chances!" We desire no younger sons of English or Eastern parents without energy or capital to start them. High birth, aristocratic connections, we value not at all, unless they carry with them the sense of responsibility to honored forefathers—the determination that the stigma of failure shall not stain a proud name. Nor do we desire those young men whose first thought is, "How shall we amuse ourselves?" and whose first aim is the cricket, or base-ball, or lawn-tennis ground, and whose chief luggage is bat, fishing-rod, and shot-gun.