There is another division of the Wallamet Valley—Columbia County—which belongs about equally to the Columbia Valley. It borders for thirty-five miles on the Columbia River, and for fifteen on the Wallamet. It has the Tualatin Plains for its southern boundary, and the Coast Range for its western. It contains about two hundred thousand acres of heavily timbered uplands and ridges, and about one hundred thousand of rich bottom-lands—most of it subject to overflow, in the summer flood of the Columbia.
Where the land has been cleared and farmed, it has proven very productive; the farmers preferring to raise fruit and vegetables to grain, and more of them being stock-raisers and dairymen than agriculturists.
The resources of Columbia County really lie in her timber, water-power, iron-beds, coal-mines, fisheries, and salt-springs. Her advantages are rather those of a commercial, than a farming, district. Lying just between the great grain-growing region and the great natural highway of commerce—the Columbia River—it can not be long before her natural wharves of solid basalt shall be in use to accommodate the exchange between these two.
The whole northern boundary of this county has a depth of water along it, varying from forty to seventy-two feet, with a channel wide enough in most places for vessels to "round out" with ease. These advantages can not be disregarded in the planning of the best and shortest routes for trade and travel. Whether or not the North Pacific and Oregon Central Railroad centre at Portland for the present, the time can not be far distant when an air-line road, from the Columbia River to some point on the valley roads, will be constructed; thus making, direct, a line from Puget Sound
