156 NARRATIVE OF 1853. 
it entirely practicable for a railroad line to the sound, but that the work was light, and the 
material for construction of all kinds entirely inexhaustible. There was building stone, there 
was timber, there was sand, materials for ballasting, and inconsiderable rock cutting. After 
considerable delays at Vancouver, the gentlemen of the parties under Captain McClellan and 
Lieutenant Donelson arrived at Olympia for office duty, being preceded a few days by Mr. 
Lander, who, for reasons not conclusive to my mind, did not persevere in the examination of 
the Nachess Pass. One of his reasons for not continuing his examination was, that it was not 
on the railroad line; which did not apply, because that fact was well known to him previously, 
having been announced to him positively in my written instructions. I did not censure Mr. 
Lander for not continuing on this duty, as I know the perplexity of mind in which one is 
placed by the contradictory character of the information gained; but I resolved to get my line 
to the sound, and accordingly despatched an express to the Walla-Walla, directing Mr. Tink- 
ham on his arrival at that point to cross to Puget Sound by the Sno-qual-moo Pass, my object 
being two-fold: to get at some facts which would decisively settle the question of the depth of 
snow, in regard to which Captain McClellan and myself differed, as well as really to connect 
our work with the sound itself. I will here observe that Mr. Gibbs, instead of accompanying 
Captain McClellan to the sound, under his directions, went to Astoria and thence to Shoal- 
water bay, in order to examine the country. The following is a summary of his report: 
MR. GIBBS’S REPORT. 
Soon after the arrival of the expedition at Vancouver, Mr. Gibbs was sent by Captain Mc- 
Clellan with directions to make a reconnoissance of the country about Shoalwater bay, a large 
sheet of water just north of the mouth of the Columbia, which was beginning to attract much 
attention from the profitable trade in oysters lately sprung up there, though the existence of 
such a large bay was only made known within a year, having been overlooked by all the navi- 
gators who explored the coast. 
Going down the Columbia by steamboat he reached Baker’s bay, and crossed the narrow 
neck of land, three or four miles wide, which separates the Columbia at that point from Shoal- 
water bay. Passing through this in a small boat, he was enabled to make a general sketch 
of its outlines, connecting the southern and larger end with the northern, which had been 
partially surveyed by the officers of the United States Coast Survey steamer Active. Its 
length he estimates at thirty miles, and its width to average eight. Its entrance, lying twenty- 
five miles north of the Columbia river, is six miles wide, and has two channels, with 3 to 33 
fathoms depth, and the northern one a good beating channel. 
The greater part of the bay 
fathoms remain in the channels, 
Between the south end of the bay and the Columbia 
Pacific is not over a mile wide, 
cranberry swamps. А similar 
Three considerable rivers emp 
Іораһ, Naysal, and Co-paláx, (а 
