APPENDIX. 487 



these mills are araoniz: the largest and best of their kind in 

 the world. The mills on Paget Sound and Hood's canal 

 have a capacity to produce forty million feet in a year. Next 

 to lumbering comes farming. The Territory does not produce 

 more than grain enough for its own consumption. The climate 

 is too moist and cool for maize, peaches, melons, and sweet po- 

 tatoes ; but wheat, oats, Irish potatoes^ and apples do well. Tiie 

 fern and sorrel trouble the farmers greatly. The territory has 

 no manufacLures, not even a woollen-mill. It is impossible now 

 to say what will be the importance of the gold-placers found in 

 the valleys of the Salmon and Clearwater Rivers ; but if allthe 

 men who have already gone thither remain there and tiud 

 profitable emplojTnent in digging gold, niniing will soon be 

 tiie principal industry of the country. The chief present 

 annual exports of Washington Territory may be set down at 

 twenty million feet of lumber, five hundred barrels of 

 salted fish, one thousand bushels of oysters, and some Bel- 

 lingham Bay coal. The TeiTitory has no railroad or canal, 

 and wagon-roads are few. The Federal government has 

 nearly completed a military road from Vancouver on the 

 Columbia River to Belling!] am Bay. The government cut 

 a road from Steilacoom across the Cascade Mountains by 

 the Nahchess Pass in latitude 47® 15', and is now engaged 

 in opening a road from Walla Walla to Fort Benton on the 

 Missouri River. There is no Federal fortification, arsenal, or 

 navy-yard in Washington. There is a United States marine 

 hospital at Port Townsend, and there are small military posts 

 at the same place, at Steilacoon, Gray's harbor, Vancouver, 

 Walla Walla, Simcoe, and Colville. The Territory has few im- 

 portant public institutions, and no important public buildings. 

 The capitol building in Olympia is of wood ; the Territorial pri- 

 son is in Vancouver. There is a school called a college in 

 Olympia, and there are numerous common-schools. Olympia, 

 Steilacoom, Port Townsend, and Vancouver have each a 

 weekly newspaper. The taxable property of the Territory, 

 according to the assessor's returns, is $3,300,000. — The settlers 



