His judgment was masterly and exhaustive, and I should think would convince any candid mind.

Thus ends this act in the drama, with the position. of the Oregon Pacific confirmed at every point, and the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company with a very pretty quarrel on their hands with the Northern Pacific, and an impending competition, at which the farmers of the State rejoice.

And so the transportation question in Oregon is in a fair way to be settled in a manner consonant with justice and honesty, so that produce will be charged only what is commensurate in fair measure with the cost and risk of the service rendered, and not in the opposite direction of what the producer can bear.

Before I close this subject, let me describe very shortly the principle and method of the harbor improvement at Yaquina.

The problem is this: In the harbor is a sheet of tidal water running up more than twenty miles inland, and in the bay or harbor proper expanding into a width of about three miles. To the tidal water has to be added that brought down by the Yaquina River and its tributaries in a course of fifty miles or thereabout. The deep-water channel to the ocean through which this inflow and outflow are repeated twice every twentyfour hours is deep and narrow, and the current very swift. Thus, this channel of a quarter of a mile wide between the headlands on either side of the mouth does not vary appreciably in width or depth, and requires no attention.

Just where the mouth opens to the ocean is the reef, of soft sandstone rock, rising in intervals of separate rocks to within ten or eleven feet of low-water mark—

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that is to say, each of the three channels through the reef, north, middle, and south, gives this depth of water. But here the water, which has kept clear and deep the channel of a quarter of a mile wide or thereabout, expands to a width of about two miles. Consequently, the current is not sufficiently strong in any one of the three channels to prevent the piling of the sand against the rock outside and in, in a gentle rise from the forty-feet depth outside to the height of the rocky reef, and similarly from the thirty feet inside the reef.

The engineers propose, by a jetty from the south beach to a group of rocks forming the south side of the middle channel, to extend the narrow deep channel inside, and the consequent force of concentrated tidal and river water, up to the rocky reef itself. They judge that the tidal force is ample to scour away clean all the sand deposited both in and outside the reef. They propose, then, to blast away the rock itself from the middle channel, which, as the obstruction is both soft and narrow, will be neither a difficult nor costly operation, and they intend thus to open to the commerce of the world the calm and deep waters of the harbor, which will suffice to receive all the fleet of vessels trading to this coast.

The construction of the jetty is proceeding rapidly by means of large mattresses of brushwood sunk in the destined position, loaded with rock and attracting and retaining the sand, and covered in, when the needed breadth and height are gained, with larger rocks brought down from a quarry of hard stone about eight miles up the harbor.

No one who, like the present writer, has often tried to stem the tidal current sweeping out to sea, can doubt

the force and velocity it will bring to bear; and no one familiar with Yaquina doubts the anticipated success of the improvement. Once gained, it will be permanent, and then half an hour will suffice to tug the arriving vessel from the deep waters of the Pacific to her station alongside her wharf, and the same time will dispatch her, fully loaded, on her voyage.

To sum up this matter: At present a very large portion of the profits of farming and of other industries in Oregon goes into the pockets of the transportation company. The rates of freight bear no proportion to the benefits obtained, but are fixed simply on the principle of sitting down to pencil out a list to see how much the farmers can passibly pay. If this state of things were to be indefinitely perpetuated, the outlook would be dreary. That a radical change is impending is to me clear. The country is too rich in productive powers, the citizens are too fully awake to the needs of their position, the knowledge of what Oregon is and what she wants is too widely spread, and the president of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company has trumpeted forth the enormous profits of his corporation too loudly, for the failure of the efforts now in progress to introduce competition in the carrying-trade. So that I, for one, am at rest as to the result. Oregon will take her own part in the general movement, now current throughout the United States, to regulate, if not to curtail, the powers of the corporations.

But I have confidence in the steady and peaceful character of her population not to carry this matter here to extremes, which might unduly burden associated capital, and check the flow of its full current to our State.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Emigration to Oregon-Who should not come-Free advice and no fees -English emigrants-Farmers-Haste to be rich-Quoted experiences-Cost and ways of coming-Sea-routes-Railroads-Baggage-What not to bring-What not to forget-Heavy property-The Custom-house-San Francisco hotels-Conclusion.

THE question most often asked and most difficult to answer is, "Do you advise me to come out to Oregon ?" It is easy to say who should not come. We want no waifs and strays of civilization, enervated with excesses, or depressed with failure; men who can find no niche for themselves, who have neither the habit, the disposition, nor the education for work. We want none of those youngsters who have tried this, have failed in that, until their friends say in disgust, "Oh, ship them to Oregon, and let them take their chances!" We desire no younger sons of English or Eastern parents without energy or capital to start them. High birth, aristocratic connections, we value not at all, unless they carry with them the sense of responsibility to honored forefathers-the determination that the stigma of failure shall not stain a proud name. Nor do we desire those young men whose first thought is, "How shall we amuse ourselves ?" and whose first aim is the cricket, or base-ball, or lawn-tennis ground, and whose chief luggage is bat, fishing-rod, and shot-gun.

And, on the other hand, we do not want those who, having qualified themselves, as they suppose, for life in

Oregon by six months or a year with some scientific farmer, consider that they know everything, despise instruction, neglect advice, are wiser than their elders, and then throw up in disgust as soon as they find that they have sunk their money, that their theories will not work, and that they must here as elsewhere begin at the beginning.

Nor do we propose (and we are certain it is in no way necessary) to charge new-comers an initiation fee of two hundred and fifty dollars, or any other sum, for the privilege of joining our society in Oregon, and profiting by our experience.

And, as I began by saying, the English who have come here have established no colony, in the usual sense, set up no separate society, and claim no common corporate life.

Society we have, association we have, common amusements and pursuits we have, but in all these we invite our American neighbors to take their part, and see no reason to regret our course.

True it is that the costume of knickerbockers and gaiters and heather-suit and pot-hat is a very common object in our town, and that we meet in considerable force at the Episcopal church on Sunday to join in the familiar service. But we adhere to our original plan that the newcomer shall settle where he pleases in these counties, shall have the best advice we can bestow in the choice of land, the purchase of stock and implements, and of the other necessaries for a farmer's start in life; and shall have this free of charge. We offer the right hand of friendship; we will do our part to keep up association and kindly relations of all kinds.

But we are more anxious that Oregon should be