earth, and covered with trees and grass. The two great giants who sat
always glowering at each other from far away (Mount Adams and Mount
Hood) quarreled terribly once on a time, and the sky grew black with
their smoke and the earth trembled with their roaring. And in their
rage and fury they began to throw great stones and huge mountain
boulders at one another. This great battle lasted for days, and when
the smoke and the thunderings had passed away and the sun shone
peacefully again, the people came back once more. But there was no
bridge there. Pieces of rock made small islands above the lost bridge,
but below that the river fretted and shouted and plunged over jagged
and twisted boulders for miles down the stream, throwing the spray high
in air, madly spending its strength in treacherous whirlpools and deep
seductive currents--ever after to be wrathful, complaining, dangerous.
The stoutest warrior could not live in that terrible torrent. So the
beautiful bridge was lost, destroyed in this Titan battle, but far down
in the water could be seen many of the stately trees which the Great
Spirit caused to remain there as a token of the bridge. These he turned
to stone, and they are there even unto this day. The theory of the
scientists, of course, runs counter to the pretty legend. Science
usually does destroy poetry, and they tell us that a part of the
mountain slid into the river, thus accounting for the remnant of a
forest down in the deep water. Moreover, pieces which have been
recovered show the wood to be live timber, and not petrified, as the
poetic fiction has it. The Columbia has not changed in the centuries,
but flows in the same channel here as when in the remote ages the lava,
overflowing, cut out a course and left its pathway clear for all time.
Below the lower Cascades a sea-coral formation is found, grayish in
color and not very pretty, but showing conclusively its sea formation.
Sandstone is also at times uncovered, showing that this was made by sea
deposit before the lava flowed down upon it. This Oregon country is