equally to Albany. It is hardly less beautiful, none the less industrious, thriving, or intelligent; and is the third town in importance in Oregon. With a population of twenty hundred, it has four churches; a college building; the best court-house, out of Portland, in the State; a fine public-school building; two flouring-mills; two lumber-mills, and good, substantial brick stores in proportion. Every trade and industry is well represented; and the character of its people is not below that of any town of its size on the coast; while its business men are noted for their enterprise and public spirit. We are pleased to pay this tribute to Albany, where we met some very congenial people. There is no place in the interior of Oregon where the stranger is more likely to be pleased with his surroundings than here.
There are also many pleasant drives and resorts about Albany, and a fine view of that beautiful group of snow-peaks, the Three Sisters. Although there is much level prairie, there are also buttes and ridges so disposed about the valley as to give a charming variety to an otherwise monotonous landscape. Opposite Albany, on the west side of the river, is a belt of heavily timbered bottom-land, which is subject to overflow, and back of that rise the rolling hills of Benton County, dotted with magnificent spreading oaks.
Above Albany the pine-tree begins to appear, mixed with the fir, along the river-banks. The groves of timber are more scattering, and the country more level and open. Except the ash, maple, alder, and willow of the river-bottoms, there is little forest; but the isolated trees of pine, fir, and oak which beautify the plains, are of the handsomest proportions.
Corvallis, about a dozen miles above Albany, on the
