About noon, or twelve hours after our start upon this unfortunate journey, we had bored to a depth of eighty-four miles, at which point the mercury registered 153 degrees F.
Why it hasn't gone up in six miles. Think of it, son!"
The falls or rapids of the Columbia are situated about one hundred and eighty miles above the mouth of the river.
At the distance of a mile and a half from the foot of this narrow channel is a rapid, formed by two rocky islands; and two miles beyond is a second great fall, over a ledge of rocks twenty feet high, extending nearly from shore to shore.
In a few minutes the far bank, a mile away, unobtrusively came into view, and ahead and behind, the whole frozen river could be seen, with off to the left a wide-extending range of sharp-cut, snow-covered mountains.
They failed to make Forty Mile that night, and when they passed that camp next day Daylight paused only long enough to get the mail and additional grub.
But just as he was going to strike, the cetacean stole away with a rapidity that could not be estimated at less than thirty miles an hour, and even during our maximum of speed, it bullied the frigate, going round and round it.
The bullet did its work; it hit the animal, and, sliding off the rounded surface, was lost in two miles depth of sea.
Toward four in the morning, at the height of the fiftieth parallel, the distance was reduced to 300
miles. To the left ran a line of mountains capriciously shaped, lying in the full light.
A the point where we first met this formation it was 120 fee in thickness; following up the river course, the surfac imperceptibly rose and the mass became thicker, so that a forty
miles above the first station it was 320 feet thick What the thickness may be close to the Cordillera, I hav no means of knowing, but the platform there attains a heigh of about three thousand feet above the level of the sea we must therefore look to the mountains of that great chai for its source; and worthy of such a source are streams tha have flowed over the gently inclined bed of the sea to distance of one hundred
miles.
Rebmann, discovered two mountain-ranges three hundred
miles from the coast.
I went up and set down on a log at the head of the island, and looked out on the big river and the black driftwood and away over to the town, three
mile away, where there was three or four lights twinkling.