Puget Sound
Washington Territory, recently admitted[22] into the Union as a State,

lies between latitude 46 degrees and 49 degrees and longitude 117
degrees and 125 degrees, forming the northwest shoulder of the united

States. The majestic range of the Cascade Mountains naturally divides
the State into two distinct parts, called Eastern and Western

Washington, differing greatly from each other in almost every way, the
western section being less than half as large as the eastern, and,

with its copious rains and deep fertile soil, being clothed with
forests of evergreens, while the eastern section is dry and mostly

treeless, though fertile in many parts, and producing immense
quantities of wheat and hay. Few States are more fertile and

productive in one way or another than Washington, or more strikingly
varied in natural features or resources.

Within her borders every kind of soil and climate may be found--the
densest woods and dryest plains, the smoothest levels and roughest

mountains. She is rich in square miles (some seventy thousand of
them), in coal, timber, and iron, and in sheltered inland waters that

render these resources advantageously accessible" target="_blank" title="a.易接近的；可到达的">accessible. She also is already
rich in busy workers, who work hard, though not always wisely,

hacking, burning, blasting their way deeper into the wilderness,
beneath the sky, and beneath the ground. The wedges of development

are being driven hard, and none of the obstacles or defenses of nature
can long withstand the onset of this immeasurable industry.

Puget Sound, so justly famous the world over for the surpassing size
and excellence and abundance of its timber, is a long, many-fingered

arm of the sea reaching southward from the head of the Strait of Juan
de Fuca into the heart of the grand forests of the westernportion of

Washington, between the Cascade Range and the mountains of the coast.
It is less than a hundred miles in length, but so numerous are the

branches into which it divides, and so many its bays, harbors, and
islands, that its entire shoreline is said to measure more than

eighteen hundred miles. Throughout its whole vast extent ships move
in safety, and find shelter from every wind that blows, the entire

mountain-girt sea forming one grand unrivaled harbor and center for
commerce.

The forest trees press forward to the water around all the windings of
the shores in most imposing array, as if they were courting their

fate, coming down from the mountains far and near to offer themselves
to the axe, thus making the place a perfect paradise for the

lumberman. To the lover of nature the scene is enchanting. Water and
sky, mountain and forest, clad in sunshine and clouds, are composed in

landscapes sublime in magnitude, yet exquisitely fine and fresh, and
full of glad, rejoicing life. The shining waters stretch away into

the leafy wilderness, now like the reaches of some majestic river and
again expanding into broad roomy spaces like mountain lakes, their

farther edges fading gradually and blending with the pale blue of the
sky. The wooded shores with an outer fringe of flowering bushes sweep

onward in beautiful curves around bays, and capes, and jutting
promontories innumerable; while the islands, with soft, waving

outlines, lavishly adorned with spruces and cedars, thicken and enrich
the beauty of the waters; and the white spirit mountains looking down

from the sky keep watch and ward over all, faithful and changeless as
the stars.

All the way from the Strait of Juan de Fuca up to Olympia, a hopeful
town situated at the head of one of the farthest-reaching of the

fingers of the Sound, we are so completely inland and surrounded by
mountains that it is hard to realize that we are sailing on a branch

of the salt sea. We are constantly reminded of Lake Tahoe. There is
the same clearness of the water in calm weather without any trace of

the ocean swell, the same picturesque winding and sculpture of the
shoreline and flowery, leafy luxuriance; only here the trees are

taller and stand much closer together, and the backgrounds are higher
and far more extensive. Here, too, we find greater variety amid the

marvelouswealth of islands and inlets, and also in the changing views
dependent on the weather. As we double cape after cape and round the

uncounted islands, new combinations come to view in endless variety,
sufficient to fill and satisfy the lover of wild beauty through a

whole life.
Oftentimes in the stillest weather, when all the winds sleep and no

sign of storms is felt or seen, silky clouds form and settle over all
the land, leaving in sight only a circle of water with indefinite

bounds like views in mid-ocean; then, the clouds lifting, some islet
will be presented standing alone, with the topes of its trees dipping

out of sight in pearly gray fringes; or, lifting higher, and perhaps
letting in a ray of sunshine through some rift overhead, the whole

island will be set free and brought forward in vivid relief amid the
gloom, a girdle of silver light of dazzling brightness on the water

about its shores, then darkening again and vanishing back into the
general gloom. Thus island after island may be seen, singly or in

groups, coming and going from darkness to light like a scene of
enchantment, until at length the entire cloud ceiling is rolled away,

and the colossal cone of Mount Rainier is seen in spotless white
looking down over the forests from a distance of sixty miles, but so

lofty and so massive and clearly outlined as to impress itself upon us
as being just back of a strip of woods only a mile or two in breadth.

For the tourist sailing to Puget Sound from San Francisco there is but
little that is at all striking in the scenery within reach by the way

until the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca is reached. The voyage
is about four days in length and the steamers keep within sight of the

coast, but the hills fronting the sea up to Oregon are mostly bare and
uninviting, the magnificent redwood forests stretching along this

portion of the California coast seeming to keep well back, away from
the heavy winds, so that very little is seen of them; while there are

no deep inlets or lofty mountains visible to break the regular
monotony. Along the coast of Oregon the woods of spruce and fir come

down to the shore, kept fresh and vigorous by copious rains, and
become denser and taller to the northward until, rounding Cape

Flattery, we enter the Strait of Fuca, where, sheltered from the ocean
gales, the forests begin to hint the grandeur they attain in Puget

Sound. Here the scenery in general becomes exceedingly interesting;
for now we have arrived at the grand mountain-walled channel that

forms the entrance to that marvelousnetwork of inland waters that
extends along the margin of the continent to the northward for a

thousand miles.
This magnificent inlet was named for Juan de Fuca, who discovered it

in 1592 while seeking a mythical strait, supposed to exist somewhere
in the north, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific. It is about

seventy miles long, ten or twelve miles wide, and extends to the
eastward in a nearly straight line between the south end of Vancouver

Island and the Olympic Range of mountains on the mainland.
Cape Flattery, the westerntermination of the Olympic Range, is

terribly rugged and jagged, and in stormy weather is utterly
inaccessible" target="_blank" title="a.易接近的；可到达的">accessible from the sea. Then the ponderous rollers of the deep

Pacific thunder amid its caverns and cliffs with the foam and uproar
of a thousand Yosemite waterfalls. The bones of many a noble ship lie

there, and many a sailor. It would seem unlikely that any living
thing should seek rest in such a place, or find it. Nevertheless,

frail and delicate flowers bloom there, flowers of both the land and
the sea; heavy, ungainly seals disport in the swelling waves, and find

grateful retreats back in the inmost bores of its storm-lashed
caverns; while in many a chink and hollow of the highest crags, not

visible from beneath, a great variety of waterfowl make homes and rear
their young.

But not always are the inhabitants safe, even in such wave-defended
castles as these, for the Indians of the neighboring shores venture

forth in the calmest summer weather in their frail canoes to spear the
seals in the narrow gorges amid the grinding, gurgling din of the

restless waters. At such times also the hunters make out to scale
many of the apparently inaccessible" target="_blank" title="a.易接近的；可到达的">accessible cliffs for the eggs and young of

the gulls and other water birds, occasionally losing their lives in
these perilous adventures, which give rise to many an exciting story

told around the campfires at night when the storms roar loudest.
Passing through the strait, we have the Olympic Mountains close at

hand on the right, Vancouver Island on the left, and the snowy peak of
Mount Baker straight ahead in the distance. During calm weather, or

when the clouds are lifting and rolling off the mountains after a
storm, all these views are truly magnificent. Mount Baker is one of

that wonderful series of old volcanoes that once flamed along the
summits of the Sierras and Cascades from Lassen to Mount St. Elias.

Its fires are sleeping now, and it is loaded with glaciers, streams of
ice having taken the place of streams of glowing lava. Vancouver

Island presents a charmingvariety of hill and dale, open sunny spaces