South Pass—Wind River Mountains—Oregon, its three grand divisions.

Having accomplishd my journal of distances from St. Josephs to Oregon city, I begin my history of Oregon with the South Pass and Wind River mountains. From descriptions formerly given by some writers of the South Pass, the reader may be led to suppose that the traveler is to pass through a tremendous gap of the Rocky mountains, walld in with huge rocks on its sides, passable only by traversing the bottoms of a stream of water, which finds its way through the mountains of that place. But instead of such an appearance as that, on arriving at the culminating point, he sees before him, on his left and behind, only an undulating country, difficult probably in many places to pass with wagons, on account of the roughness and unevenness of the surface of the land, but destitute entirely of those cragged cliffs and high towring mountains, which the imagination sometimes pictures out, previous to a perfect vision of a country scenery.

The surface of the land along the emigrant route at the pass, is sufficiently uneven to determine within one rod of the culminating point, after which within a short distance, the road commences a somewhat rapid descent westward three or four miles, to a spring issuing from the hills, calld Pacific spring, because its waters are dischargd westward into the Pacific ocean.

On the right, at the dividing ridge, twelve or fifteen miles north of the emigrant road, terminate the Wind River range of mountains, calld also the Rocky mountains. From their southern extremity to a considerable distance either east or west of the dividing ridge, they are seen to stretch far away to the north-west, towring high and giving rise to several important rivers, which traverse the continent, and terminate, some of them in the Atlantic ocean eastward, and some of them in the Pacific ocean westward. Although these mountains have many lofty peaks, yet I believe none of them are sufficiently high to maintain their glaciers during the whole year, at all times. It is nevertheless true, that some of their chasms and deep ravines upon their north-eastern declivities oftentimes have snow lying in them through the year, yet no point on any one of them, as has been remarkd, is high enough for the existence of a zone of perpetual frost. This position is well corroborated, also, from the fact that forests are seen growing, not only high up their declivities, but entirely upon their summits.

The present country of Oregon, belonging to the U. States, extends from the dividing ridge or natural division of the waters of the continent, to the Pacific ocean westward, and in extent north and south, from lat. 42 deg. north to 49 deg. north. It seems to be divided into three grand divisions, by ranges of parallel mountains from north to south. The dividing summit of the continent on the east, west of the eastern division, are the Blue mountains, separating it from the middle,—and between the middle and western divisions, is the Cascade range of mountains.