to San Francisco Bay. The future of Columbia County as a commercial district, will then be more assured than any other in Western Oregon, unless Astoria should finally become the great city of the Columbia; and even then, all the inland trade would drift to the Columbia by the air-line road.
The summer climate of Columbia County is several degrees cooler than that of Multnomah, having the breeze direct from the sea, by way of the Columbia River, In winter the south-west storms do not have access to it with full violence along the Columbia, on account of the sheltering hills toward the south. It has opposite to it some of the richest lands, especially dairy-lands, in Washington Territory; and Sauvie's Island is just at its eastern end. At present the population is small, but well-to-do and industrious. It has six lumber-mills, and one grist-mill, with others in course of erection. The steam saw-mill at St. Helen is one of the largest, if not the largest, in the State. Its capacity has been given elsewhere.
There are several small streams emptying into the Columbia in this county, whose valleys are being rapidly settled up by individuals or by colonies. The Claskenine, in the western end of it, has some excellent farms along its course. The farmers in the Columbia Valley have the advantage of lumbering and fishing, in addition to farming, as a means of acquiring wealth—an advantage which begins to be perceived in the increasing prosperity of this most sparsely settled portion of Oregon.
The entire area of the Wallamet Valley is about that of the State of Connecticut—or five thousand square miles—with almost no waste-land in it. It is entirely surrounded by mountains, except on the north
