268 GEOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
CAPE FLATTERY, 48° 23 NORTH LATITUDE, 124° 40’ WEST LONGITUDE. 
From Flattery Rocks the coast runs for about eleven nautical miles to the north, with a final 
trend to the west, and then turns abruptly to the eastward, forming the pointed headland 
named Cape Flattery. This short section of the shore is abrupt, rocky, and lined with small 
islets. There are on this coast some small indentations, bays, and points, which have received 
names on the old Spanish admiralty charts, and which are to be found under the same names 
in the modern English charts. Puerto Alara, Cape Alara, Point Niseo, are such names. 
Sefior Alara was a Spanish officer, occasionally mentioned about the years 1792 and 1793, as 
being occupied with explorations in those regions from Nootka sound. These names are not, 
however, found on our American charts. 
The configuration of Cape Flattery may be described in the following manner: 
The whole system of the Mount Olympus range of mountains, which has its highest peak far 
in the interior, near Hood’s Canal and the Mount Olympus peninsula, terminate at Cape 
Flattery towards the northwest. Between De Fuca strait and the Pacific coast this peninsula 
becomes gradually narrower, and finally terminates in a small headland which, at its extremity, 
curves slightly to the westward. 
This small headland is somewhat separated from the large peninsular to which it is annexed. 
First, on the north by a small bay, called Meares’s harbor, which is connected by a valley with 
the low land and marshes to the south of the cape. This valley is densely wooded, but through 
it runs a small stream which, at the highest tides, renders Cape Flattery practically an island. 
This island has a somewhat triangular form, the base of the triangle being attached to the 
continent, and the opposite vertex projecting boldly into the Pacific Ocean, forming the cape 
called Cape Flattery. 
The cape is five or six hundred feet high, and falls off to the water by steep, rocky, bluffs. 
The extremity of the cape is, furthermore, broken up into a series of rocky islets, which stretch 
for about three miles out into the Pacific. 
These islets diminish in size with the distance from shore, Tatooche island being the nearest 
and largest, and Duncan Rock the outermost and smallest. 
The natural features of this cape are in many respects similar to the locality described as 
Flattery Rocks, but there are also distinguishing features; the promontory of Cape Flattery is 
higher, its islands are lower and more flat-topped. The islands of Flattery Rocks are wooded; 
the Cape Flattery islands sustain nothing but a growth of grass. 
We will first give a general outline of the history of the cape, and then consider the parts 
of which it is composed separately. 
Though the cape may have been approached or seen at a distance by former navigators—by 
Drake, who is said to have advanced as far north as 48° north latitude; by Juan de Fuca, who 
is said to have entered the strait of which this is the southern headland; by old Dutch 
navigators, who pretended to have found an entrance somewhere in this region—still it is a 
remarkable circumstance that this extreme point of the coast of America has been compara- 
tively a late discovery. 
Point Conception, Cape Mendocino, Cape Foulweather, Flattery Rocks to the south, the 
capes of Vancouver’s island, and other capes to the north, were known long before this cape 
was mentioned. 
Many Spanish as well as English exploring expeditions, before the year 1787, passed along > 
fhis coast from the south far to the north without perceiving this headland. 
