.46 



THE CONDOR 



Vol. X 



The rug'gedness of this coast is occasioned apparently by a great fault, or crack 

 in the earth's crust, running roughly north and south. The sea-floor having been 

 dropped to westward, the upturned edges are left on shore at the mercy of the 

 waves. Moreover, the shore line is complicated by transverse folds of rock, the 

 precursors of the Olympic Mountains to the eastward; and these are usually marked, 

 off-shore, by a chain of islets in descending series, the outermost member of the 

 series being the most denuded, and the innermost being mere detached fragments 

 of the mainland with forest crowns intact. It is thus that the more than six score 

 of islets, which rise above the spra^^-line, are grouped into nine principal systems, 

 roughly corresponding to the chief promontories. 



Because of their proximity, considered as a whole, to the Olympic Mountains, 

 and because they are in a sense the by-products of the same orogenetic movement, 

 I have proposed for these islands the name Olympiades (pronounced Olympiah-diz). 

 The name will be all the more convenient now that tliej^ are arbitrarily divided into 

 three administrative groups. 



All the islands between Gray's Harbor and the Straits of Juan de Fuca are cov- 



A WHITE-CRESTED CORMORANT ROOKERY; OUILLAYUTE NEEDLES RESERVATION 



Photo by W. Leon Dawson 



ered by the executive orders, save Destruction and Tatoosh, which are already oc- 

 cupied by Government lighthouses, and upon which, presumably, the same meas- 

 ure of protection will be enforced b)^ the L,ighthouse Board. James Island, altho 

 specified in the orders, is virtually a part of the mainland, and is already occupied 

 for gardening purposes by the Quileute Indians. With these exceptions, none of 

 the Olympiades has any economic value, save that of bird propagation or as a 

 lounging place for sea-lions. 



Those islets which are not fully denuded by the combined action of the ele- 

 ments and the sea-birds, are covered with a dense growth of bushes, chiefly a 

 dwarfed salmon berry and salal. This crown invariably affords cover for the Rusty 

 Song Sparrow {Melosj)iza cinerea inorjyhna) and occasionally for the. Sooty Fox 

 Sparrow {Passerella iliaca fuliginosa) . On Destruction Island, Russet-backed 

 Thrushes {Hylocichia ustulata), Lutescent Warblers {Heliuintho^hila cekita lutes- 

 cens), Yellow Warblers {Deiidroica cesf/ra), Barn Swallows (^Hirundo erythro- 

 ^«5/£'r), Western Winter Wrens {Olbiorchilns hiemalis facificus), and Rufous 



