282 GEOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
THE ENTRANCE OF ADMIRALTY INLET. 
Our geographical nomenclature, unhappily, has not been organized by men who had the whole 
finished map of the country before them, who could analyze the different geographical objects 
into their component parts and subdivisions, and could give appropriate and special names; 
else no doubt that northern part of Admiralty Inlet between Wilson and Suquamish Points would 
have received its proper name. It forms in a certain degree a basin itself. 
On the north it is separated in a marked manner from De Fuca strait, and to the south the 
waters branch out in different directions. For wantofanother name we may callit Admiralty Inlet 
Entrance. It forms a basin fifteen miles long from north to south, and ten miles broad from 
west to east, with a large island and peninsula and three harbors (Townsend, Oak Bay, Port 
Ludlow) on the western shore, and several open bays on the eastern shore. 
Quimper says, in his journal, that from his Ne Plus Ultra (at Port Discovery) he saw other 
inlets and openings to the east, which he called Boca de Fidalgo and Boca de Flon. He had, 
however, no time to explore them. 
Don Francisco Elisa, who advanced in 1791 to the eastern end of De Fuca strait, recognized 
for the first time this inlet, and called it Bocas de Caamona, (the Inlet of Caamona,) probably 
in honor of the Spanish navigator Caamona, who was then preparing for his great northwestern 
expedition, which he-executed іп 1792. Оп all the old Spanish charts Admiralty Inlet Entrance 
is called Bocas de Caamona, while they only call the further large interior body of the waters 
Canal del Almerantzago, (Admiralty Intet.) 
It would not only have been just to the discoverer, but also very convenient, if we had 
adopted this manner of denomination. 
Elisa, however, did not further explore the interior of this inlet, because he understood 
from the Indians that, though it was very long, still, from the end of it, one could not advance 
further unless with canoes.*  Elisa/s object was not to explore shut-up inlets, but to find a 
passage to other waters. The original name of this entrance was ascertained by the Spaniards 
to be Quenchenas.t 
Vancouver sailed into the entrance (on the "ith of May, 1192) with three boats, on a boat 
excursion from Port Discovery, where his ships were stationed. He gave to it the name of 
Admiralty Inlet, but he extended this name to the whole broad channel to the south. 
Vancouver and his officers, in repeated excursions, surveyed for the first time all the principal 
branches connected with this inlet. 
As the sea otter was not found in these Waters, the American and English fur traders seldom 
or never explored them. 
It was not surveyed by a scientific expedition for half a century after Vancouver. 
| The agents of the Hudson Bay Company became acquainted with the channels, but they have 
published no works or charts on it. 
The American exploring expedition under Captain Wilkes made for the first time, after 
Vancouver, (1841,) an extensive survey of the whole, and completed discoveries in several 
parts, which we will describe more particularly hereafter. Since 1853 the United States Coast 
Survey has been extended over this field, and already many special charts of harbors and inlets 
have been published. 
Point Wilson is the northeastern extremity of the hilly peninsula between Port Discovery 
* Sutil and Mexicana, р. 35. + Ibid. 
