30 CRUISINGS IN THE CASCADES 



four hours pleasantly spent in viewing its many 

 points of interest and the snow-covered mountains 

 thereabouts, we again boarded the Northern Pacific 

 train and sped toward Tacoma, where we arrived at 

 six o' clock in the evening. Here we passed another 

 day in looking over a booming Western city, whose 

 future prosperity and greatness have been assured by 

 its having been chosen as the tide-water terminus of 

 the Northern Pacific Railway. Tacoma is situated 

 on Commencement Bay, an arm of Puget Sound, 

 and has a harbor navigable for the largest ocean 

 steamships. The vast forests of pine, fir, and cedar, 

 with which it is surrounded, give Tacoma great 

 commercial importance as a lumbering town, and the 

 rich agricultural valleys thereabout assure home pro- 

 duction of breadstuffs, vegetables, meats, etc., suffi- 

 cient to feed its army of workingmen. Rich coal fields, 

 in the immediate neighborhood, furnish fuel for 

 domestic and manufacturing purposes at merely 

 nominal prices. All the waters hereabouts abound 

 in salmon, several varieties of trout and other food- 

 fishes, while in the woods and mountains adjacent, 

 elk, deer, and bears are numerous; so the place will 

 always be a popular resort for the sportsman and 

 the tourist. The chief attraction of the city, how- 

 ever, for the traveler, will always be the fine view 

 it affords of Mount Tacoma. This grand old pinnacle 

 of the Cascade Range, forty-five miles distant, lifts its 

 snow- man tied form far above its neighbors, which are 

 themselves great mountains, while its glacier-crowned 

 summit rises, towers, and struggles aloft 'til 



" Round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 

 Eternal sunshine settles on its head;" 



