brought the water over the upper wharves and even over Front street, which is twenty-five feet above low-water mark. The summer flood in the Columbia, occasioned by the melting of snow in the mountains where it has its sources, backs the water up in the Wallamet as far as the falls at Oregon City, which again makes it necessary to abandon the lower wharves. These two rises keep this portion of the Wallamet supplied with water through the greater portion of the year; but it is necessary to dredge the channel below the city in the latter part of the summer. Since the dredger came into use no vessels have been stopped by bars, but all discharge their freight at the wharves.
There is a regular line of ocean steamers belonging to the North Pacific Transportation Company—Holladay and Brenham, owners—which makes three or four trips a month between San Francisco and Portland; and another line owned by the same company, making about the same number of trips to Victoria and Puget Sound. The Oregon Steam Navigation Company run steamers upon the Columbia River and several of its smaller tributaries—semi-weekly to Astoria, daily to the Cowlitz River and intermediate points, and daily to the Cascades and Dalles City; semi-weekly, or tri-weekly, from Dalles to Wallula; and at stated periods on the Snake River and Northern branch of the Columbia. Sailing vessels run quite regularly to the Sandwich Islands, China, South America, and New York, as well as to San Francisco; and the trade is yearly increasing.
The facilities for travel in the Wallamet Valley, and southward, are: first, the Oregon and California Railroad, which is already in running order to the head of the valley on the east side, connecting with a line of
