this an excellent point for establishing lumber-mills. The greater portion of this land is still Government land, with the exception of a small Indian Agency: another feature in favor of the coast side of Benton County. The hunter and trapper may find plenty of amusement and occupation about the bays and streams and in the Coast Mountains. Such game as elk, bear, and deer, are plentiful; while water-fowl, beaver, otter, and mink, are more than abundant. Corvallis, the shire-town, has already been noticed in another chapter; besides which there are six or eight smaller towns in this county—ten post-offices in all.
Lane County is the largest county in the Wallamet Valley, with a rare combination of agricultural and manufacturing facilities. Extending, as' it does, from the Cascade Mountains on the east, to the Pacific Ocean on the west, and embracing within its limits the three forks of the Wallamet River, besides that branch bearing the sobriquet of Long Tom—having thousands of acres of the best grain-land—thousands more of excellent pasture—thousands more of splendid timber, with water-power in abundance—it contains within itself the resources of a small State; being, in fact, more than twice and one-half as large as Rhode Island.
We have already spoken of this county rather particularly in describing the advantages of Eugene City—which must become, to a great extent, a depot for the productions of the upper half of the Wallamet Valley. To the eye, Lane County presents a very attractive diversity of surface: prairies, that from level become undulating; and hills, that from being long swells of scantily wooded uplands, rise gradually into high mountains, with crowns of rugged, evergreen forest.
