468 COUNTRY UPON SHOALWATER BAY AND PUGET SOUND. 
would be of immense advantage to both in opening up settlements, and greatly shorten the mail 
communication between Astoria and the Sound. From the Cowliz bottom to Cathlamet there is 
no practicable starting point for such a route, a heavy range of hills bordering the river the whole 
distance and extending back for some miles. The road must, therefore, necessarily terminate 
at some point below the latter place. 
The course of the Chihalis river is so remarkable as to deserve a particular notice in reference 
to this part of the country. Heading about fifteen miles north of the Columbia, at Cathlamet, it 
runs nearly parallel with, but in an opposite direction to, the Cowlitz, and between that river and 
the heads of those entering the bay, which it completely encircles. After receiving the Nawaukum 
and the Skookum Chuck, two bold streams rising in the Cascade mountains, it bends to the 
westward, and empties finally into Gray’s harbor. Much of the country upon its borders is open 
prairie, and that portion lying between the Bois-fort and Mound prairies forms a part of the great 
level between the Columbia bottom and Puget sound. A range of hills separates it from the 
Willopah, but between it and the Cowlitz the divide is almost imperceptible. From the Skookum 
Chuck down, the prairies continue here and there, the lower ones being rather less gravelly than 
that known as the Mound prairie. 
About eighteen miles from the Skookum Chuck it receives a creek from the northward, called 
the Satchall. heading in a small lake, and thirty miles below that a Jarger one, the Satsop. Both 
of these interlock with the Skokomish, running into Hammersly’s inlet; or, as it is called here, 
Skookum bay. The Indians speak of numerous prairies as lying around the heads of those 
streams. A horse trail, used by them, leads from the Satsop across to the inlet. 
Two other considerable branches, both likewise from the north side, enter farther down the 
Wynoochee and Whiskkah, and a still larger one falls into Gray’s harbor, on which, according 
to them, there is fine prairie country and many horses. 
The whole country north of the Chihalis is known only by Indian report. 
About twenty-five miles above it lies the Quinaitl. This stream also, according to common 
accounts, interlocks with the waters of Hammersly’s inlet. It has no entrance for vessels at its 
mouth, and is of inconsiderable size, but the country between it and the former contains large 
open prairies. 
On reaching Olympia, in the beginning of January, I was directed to proceed through the 
Sound, for the purpose of making inquiries relative to the Indian tribes. The journey being 
performed by water, and the weather very inclement, no opportunity occurred for exploring the 
interior; but some information was nevertheless collected incidentally. The country at the head 
of the Sound is pretty well known, but only a few persons have penetrated that farther to the 
northward. The whole forms a basin, enclosed between the Cascade and the Coast chains, and 
is of itself apparently but a portion of one more extended, stretching from the Columbia river far 
to the north, of which the mountains of Vancouver’s and Queen Charlotte’s islands are part of the 
exterior wall. A glance at the map presents in the inlets which pierce the main land opposite 
those islands, the same geological features that exist upon the Sound. The mountains of the 
Olympian range evidently, at one time, formed but another island. The prairies lying upon the 
Cowlitz and the Chihalis were elevated at the same time with the present shores of those arms 
of the sea, and probably intersected by similar canals. ‘The wash of the mountains has filled 
these up, just as the same process of deposition has shoaled the heads of existing inlets, and 
created the extensive marshes and flats lying between Whidby’s island and the main. 
The general face of the country upon the Sound is that of a slightly rolling plateau, the eleva- 
tion of which is from one hundred to three hundred feet, rising, however, as it approaches the 
foot of the mountains. The banks are usually bluff, formed of sand, gravel, and boulders, with 
a slight admixture of clay, and resting on a substratum of stiff blue clay. Elsewhere the sand 
is replaced by sandstone, containing lignite and coal. The soil at the head of the Sound is for 
the most part gravelly, a character which it takes at the Skookum Chuck river, and retains as far 
