A.O Lawrence, Birds of Grav's Harbor, }]*tisJ/itig-fo>i. [|;iiui;iiy 



next in size, rises in the Olympic Mountains, fiows southwest 

 fifty or sixty miles, and empties into its northwest side. This 

 stream is shallow, rapid, broad, and very clear; it is not naviga- 

 ble by steamers, excepting small ones for three miles. Canoes 

 are poled up-stream for thirty miles. All the harbor streams 

 have much marsh land about their mouths. The whole country 

 back of this low land is hillv and is densely covered with a heavy 

 growth of large timber — tir, hemlock, spruce, and cedar. The 

 firs and spruces grow to be giants: it is usual to see them from 

 four to se\en feet in diameter, and over two hundred feet high. 

 Underneath these great trees is generally a thick growth of vine- 

 maple, hemlock, large and small, alder, etc., the ground being a 

 network of ferns, vines, bushes, and brush, with fallen giant trees 

 here ant! there in all stages of decay. On all this nnich moss 

 grows ; and long festoons hang from the branches of the standing 

 trees. Except in tlie few drv weeks of midsummer, the bushes 

 and ferns are generallv wet. With one's face spattered witli rain- 

 drops and cobwebs, and with an unsiue footing, it is no wonder 

 progress is slow through such a tangle. There are a few scat- 

 tered prairies or 'opens' north of the harbor, mostly of poor 

 soil covered with a large growth of ferns. Stevens Prairie is the 

 largest and most grassy. Three towns are on the harbor : Aber- 

 deen at tlie junction of the Wishkah and Chehalis Rivers ; Ho- 

 quiam on the Hocjuiam River, four miles farther west; and 

 Ocosta on the opposite (southwest) side between the Johns and 

 Elk Rivers. The only industry is the manufacture of liunber. 

 In April, 1S90, I first ^ isited this section, for a few da\ s. going 

 just beyond the present site of Ocosta. Afterwards a few more 

 hurried trips were taken ; and one in May was extended to Ste- 

 vens Prairie, a natural prairie lying along the north side of the 

 Humptulips Ri\er for two miles, and reaching back for a mile to 

 Stevens Creek, which In^rders it on the north. Humptulips is 

 situated on the prairie. Flowers blossom there plentifully, and 

 in the ri\er-liottoms. the soil being verv rich, is a great growth 

 of underwoods with huge cottonwoods, alders, and maples, and 

 a scattering of giant spruces. Humptulips is about twenty-four 

 miles northward of Iloquiam by the county road. From the first 

 part of June to the first part of October, 1S90, and again from 

 about the middle of December, 1S90, to July, 1891, I was in the 

 county, and most of my time was spent on the East Humptulips 



