CXLIL 
De Fuca’s Pas- 
SAGE, 
Nootxa Sounp. 
IN: OO} Alt ees Si Or Ui Ne sD: 
of the opportunity of making the obfervations he wifhed. In lat. 48. 15, he in 
vain looked for the pretended ftreights of fuan de Fuca, who impofed on a Michael 
Lock, an Englifbman he met with at Venice, an account of having found, in 1592, 
an entrance in this latitude, and failed through it, till he arrived in the North 
fea, i.e. Hudfon’s Bay *. Of equal credibility is the pretended paflage of Ad- 
miral de Fontes, in 1640, which is placed in lat. 50. 1; and, according to one 
map, falls into that of De Fuca: according to another, intoa vaft inland fea, 
called Mer del Oueft t+. Diligent fearch was alfo made after this in the Spanifh 
expedition of 1775 ; which ended in difproving thefe ftrange fitions {. It had 
likewife the farther importance of filling up the gap in the charts, by furnifhing 
us with a furvey of that tract of coaft which Captain Cook was obliged to quit. 
In lat. 49, Captain Coox found a fecure fhelter in an harbor called by him 
King George’s Sound; by the natives, Nootka. The fhores are rocky §; but 
within the Sound appears a branch of the range I before mentioned. It is here 
divided into hills of unequal heights, very fteep, with ridged fides, and round 
blunted tops; in general cloathed with woods to the very fummits. Jn the 
few exceptions, the nakednefs difcovers their compofition, which is rocky, or 
in parts covered with the adventitious foil of rotten trees or moffes. 
The trees were the Pinus Canadenfis, or Canada Pine; the P. Sylveffris, or 
Scotch Pine, and two or three other forts ; Cupre/fus Thyoides, or the White Cedar. 
The Pines of this neighborhood are of a great fize: fome are a hundred and 
twenty feet high, and fit for mafts or fhip-building || ; but the dimenfions of fome 
of the canoes in Nootka Sound beft fhew their vaft bulk—they are made of a 
fingle tree, hollowed fo as to contain twenty perfons ; and are feven feet broad, and 
three deep. They are the fame with the monoxyla of the antient Germans and 
Gauls q, but conftru€ted with much more elegance. “The old Europeans were con- 
tent if they could but float. They probably were formed on the fame rude model 
as thofe of the old Virginians **, or of the antient Britons, fimilar to one I have 
feen dug up in a morafs in Scotland, as artlefs as a hog-trough ++. Thofe of Nootka 
Sound are at the head tapered into a long prow, and at the ftern they decreafe in 
breadth, but end abrupt. 
The day-tides rife here, two or three days after the full and new moon, eight 
® North-weft Fox, 163. + See Fefferies's Obf. on the Letter of Adm. de Fontes, and his 
map ; allo de L'Ifle’s map. t Maurelle’s Voy. in 1775, in Mr. Barringtou’s Mifcellanies, 508. 
§ Voyage, ii. 290. tab. 86, 87- \| Barrington’s Mifcell. 290. q Polyen. Stratagen. 
lib. v. c. 23.—Vel. Paterc. lib. ii ¢. 107+ ** Brevis et fida Narratio Virginia, in which are 
engraven the canoes of the country, taken from the drawing of Foha With ; fent there with Tho. Harriot 
for that purpofe, by Sir Walter Raleigh, who communicated them to De BryvSce tab. xii, and xiii. 
of the Account of Florida. tt Tour Scott, tir pe 106, 
2 feet 
