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I ]3EADLE’S
MONTHLY.
SEPT.EMBER, 1866.
OUR NEW STATES AND TERRITORIES.
i r 1
HORSE-TAIL I-‘ALL.
OREGON AND NVASHINGTON.
HE stage-route from Sacramento, Cali-
fornia, to Portland, Oregon, is six
hundred and forty-two miles long. In sum-
mer the trip consumes less than a week.
In winter the roads are inconceivably
bad, for Winter in Oregon means rain,
not frost.
On our west coast, the isothermal line
bends abruptly northward. San Fran-
cisco, in the latitude of Richmond, has
the climate of Savannah. Victoria, on
Vancouver Island, far north of Quebec,
is as warm as New York. In Portland,
Oregon, roses grow in open air through-
out the year. lValla-W'alla, in lVashin g-
ton Territory, latitude 46s, corresponds
in temperature to Washington City, in
39“ ; Clark’s Fork, Idaho, in 480, to St.
Joseph, Missouri, in 40s; Bitter Root
Valley, Montana, in -169, to Philadelphia,
in 40% All points on the Pacific slope
are as warm as those from six to ten de-
grees further south, on the Atlantic
side. This difference is sometimes im-
puted to the numberless hot springs
among the headwaters of the Columbia;
indeed, everywhere, from the Rocky
Mountains to the Great Ocean. But the
more prevalent theory refers it to a cur-
rent of warm water and air from the
Indian Ocean, striking the coast at an
acute angle, near San Francisco, and.
thence flowing northward. The Coast
Range and Cascade Mountains arrest and
condense the clouds, causing the winters.
of lVestern Oregon, where the sun seldom
shines, either on the evil or on the good,
and the rain steadily falls, both upon the
just and the unjust. Satirical Califor-
nians call their Oregon neighbors the
“ Web-feet.”
In winter, stage-travelers pay their
fares for the privilege of being jounced
in mud-wagons, or dislocated on horse-
back, or mired on foot. Then the jour-
ney from Sacramento to Portland seems
interminable, and there are rumors of
passengers who died of old age upon the
road.
But the summer journey is speedy and
agreeable. The tourist passes through
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by BEADLE AND COMPANY, in the Clerk's
4 Omce ot‘ the District Court for the Southern District of New York.
: Von. II.-12.
X‘ ”"o ‘I
., 90.-v3’r4<9r,:"‘-1.‘-I.‘
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