COUNTRY UPON SHOALWATER BAY AND PUGET SOUND. 469 



as the Puyallup. Lower down it is clay, of a light grayish color. The gravelly lands bear 

 pretty good grass, but on being broken up the mould leaches through. 



It is on these gravelly prairies lying between Olympia and the Skookum Chuck that the mounds 

 occur mentioned by Captain Wilkes, and which he ascribes to an artificial origin. Without 

 commenting upon the improbabiKty of any savage race covering with these monuments so exten 

 sive a tract of country, it may be proper to mention that, after a very careful examination, I have 

 failed to discover any regularity in their arrangement, as he imagined, and that the supposed 

 pavement appears to consist merely of the larger stones left by water-courses. It is, indeed, 

 difficult to account for the occurrence, over so large a tract of country, of mounds iso uniform 

 in shape and size, and so equally distributed; but the same appearance upon a smaller scale is 

 noticeable elsewhere, and the explanation I believe to be the protection afforded by scattered 

 bushes, roots, or grass to the particular spots constituting their summits, while the adjacent ground 

 has gradually been washed away. In a soil so loose and easily abraded as these prairies, such 

 an effect is not unusual; and I have seen the process going on with individual mounds. A 

 plant fully capable of producing the result is the wild cucumber vine, whose root, sometimes 

 reaching the size of a flour-barrel, would constitute no small nucleus of itself. Much of them is 

 prairie, partially wooded with oak. As farming lands, they are inferior. The clay lands are 

 esteemed excellent for wheat, but some time must elapse before they are extensively cleared. 

 The width of the plateau, from the Sound to the foot of the mountains at JNisqually, is estimated 

 at thirty miles; to the northward it becomes much narrower. The peninsula between Hood s 

 canal and Admiralty inlet, and Whidby s island, partake of this general character. 



The Cascade mountains north of Mount Rainier present, from the Sound, the same difference 

 from the southern, in the character of the scenery, as that noticed on the eastern side, arising 

 from a difference in geological character. Seen from the lower end of Whidby s island, the more 

 distant range is a bare and ragged sierra, some of the peaks of which rise to the limits of per 

 petual snow. Mount Baker, which terminates the view, has a sharp and precipitous outline, 

 more resembling that of Mount Hood than the regular forms of Rainier, St. Helens, and Adams. 

 The fact of an interior mountain basin, inferred during the examination of the country on the 

 Okinakane, seems to be confirmed. Into this there appears to be a wide entrance through the 

 gap of the Samish river. Mount Baker, it should be mentioned, has, during this winter, been 

 in action, throwing out light clouds of smoke. The last eruption of any note is said to have 

 been in 1843, when a slight shock of an earthquake was felt at Fort Langley. 



As regards the western side of the Sound, the best information attainable is as follows: 



That there is a valley lying to the west of Hood s canal, there seems to be no doubt; and the 

 existence within it of prairie country and small lakes is reported, but no persons now living on 

 the Sound have visited it. A high range of hills extends along the western edge of the canal as 

 far as the head of Quul-seet or Colseed inlet, where it appears to drop off It closely approaches 

 the water, and, as is said, leaves no passage for a road between. Beyond this range is another 

 higher one, which is believed to extend as far north as near the head of Port Discovery, and 

 thence follow the Straits of Fuca towards Cape Flattery. Still farther west is the main Olympian 

 range, which meets it at that point. Between the first and second ranges there would seem to 

 be a continuous valley, extending from the Chihalis to Port Townsend, and drained at its south 

 ern extremity by a branch of the Skokomish, which runs into Hood s canal. Between the sec 

 ond and third, if the description is correct, there must also be a basin, probably a mountainous 

 and broken one, drained at its southern extremity by a branch of the Quinaitl, and at its northern, 

 perhaps, by the Elk-whah, which runs into the Straits of Fuca. Vague Indian rumor men- 

 lions a large lake in this basin. It seems highly probable that a good route could be found by the 

 valley first mentioned from Olympia lo Port Townsend. As seen from either end the gap is ap 

 parently continuous. No obstruction exists to roads from Port Ludlovv, at the head of Hood s 

 canal, to Port Townsend, and thence along the straits, except the timber; and an old Indian trail 



