264 GEOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
GRAY’S HARBOR, 46° 56’ NORTH LATITUDE, 124° WEST LONGITUDE. 
From Shoalwater bay to the north for about fifteen miles the coast presents the same 
appearance as to the south of it, characterized by a broad flat beach, which presents a great 
highway between Shoalwater bay and Gray’s harbor; this beach may be regarded as the 
extension of Weather beach, and is bordered inland by the corresponding low, heavily-wooded 
sand hills. At the northern end of this beach lies Point Harrison, the southern entrance cape 
of Gray’s harbor. 
Gray's harbor is a large basin of triangular shape, each side of the triangle being about 
fifteen miles in length. 
The entrance to this lagoon lies at the middle of the base of the triangle—the opposite 
vertex lying to the eastward, exactly opposite the entrance, so that the whole configuration 
may be compared to the shape of an arrow head. 
A bank extends directly across this entrance, joining the opposite capes. "This bank has 
only one opening or passage, about two-thirds of a mile in width and from four td eleven 
fathoms in depth. But on the outer side this entrance has again a narrow bar with only 
eighteen feet depth of water. 
From this point the depth increases towards the east, the greatest depth being between 
the entrance points of the bay, where the depth is fourteen fathoms ; thence towards the 
interior of the bay the depth decreases and shoals very regularly to all sides of the harbor. 
The shores of the bay are surrounded by broad sandy or muddy flats, which are dry at low 
water, and form extensive salt marshes.* 
The river Chehalis enters the bay at its eastern extremity. Another small river also enters 
the harbor, called Gray's river. 
This bay was completely overlooked by the Spaniards, by Berkeley, by Meares, by Van- 
сопуег, and by all those who visited it before the American Captain Robert Gray, who dis- 
covered it on the "th of May, 1792. He entered it, found it to be well sheltered from the 
sea by long sand-bars and spits, and remained here at anchor three days, engaged in trading 
with the Indians. He named the harbor Bullfinch, in honor of one of the wealthy Boston 
merchants who had fitted him ооё + 
Gray appears not to have given any names to the two entrance capes of the harbor, which 
he probably only called North Point and South Point. 
It was soon after (October, 1192) again visited by Lieutenant Whidby, one of the officers of 
Vancouver, who, while at Nootka sound, had heard of Gray’s discovery, and who despatched 
his lieutenant, in the ship Daedalus, for a particular survey of the bay. 
Whidby and Vancouver gave to the bay the name of the American discoverer, and called it 
Gray's harbor; and this name was continued because Vancouver had once published his surveys 
and discoveries, which was not done by the American shipmaster. It thus came that the name 
of Bullfinch harbor was dropped, and it is not found on any map. On some charts the name of 
the second explorer and the first scientific surveyor of the bay (Lieutenant Whidby) is intro- 
duced. This has been done even on American charts, but the name of Gray’s harbor has at 
last prevailed. 
*See plan of Gray's harbor, Vancouver's Atlas. 
TGreenough L. C. Р, 395. 
. 
