GEOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 289 
PUGET SOUND, 47° 12’ NORTH LATITUDE, 122» 50” WEST LONGITUDE. 
Puget Sound (see sketch) forms a most variegated compound of narrow inlets and sounds, 
interlinked among each other by passages and channels, and connected with Admiralty Inlet 
only by the above named Narrows. A number of peninsulas and islands are cut out by those 
different water branches. 
The broadest and longest division of those waters is that into which Nisqually river empties 
from the south, and which follows from these two directions for long distances—one to the 
northwest, and one to the northeast. These two broadest and longest branches of the whole 
cluster, which form an angle before the mouth of Nisqually river, are considered to be the 
main body of the whole, and are usually called Puget Sound, par excellence, whilst the shorter 
and minor branches have their own proper names. 
The eastern branch of this, Puget Sound proper, has, towards the southeast, from Point 
Defiance to Nisqually river, (fifteen miles distance, ) a very straight shore line. 
` On this southeastern shore lies, however, one remarkable bay or harbor, Steilacoom harbor, 
called so from the little Steilacoom river, which empties into it. In late years the flourishing 
town Steilacoom has sprung up on the shore of this harbor. The harbor was minutely 
surveyed (1855) by the United States Coast Survey officers. 
Their chart is contained in the Coast Survey Report of 1856; but the northwestern shore is 
cut up into three large islands: З 
Rosario island, Duntze island, Fisgard island, by three channels, of which the central and 
broadest is called Bruce channel. 
Bruce channel turns afterwards to the north, and ends in a broad sound, whic 
Carr’s Inlet, and loses itself in the interior of the Great Peninsula. 
estern main branch of Puget Sound runs from the mouth of N isqually 
t ends in a closed narrow 
h is called 
The second or northw 
river in a straight direction for about twenty miles N. NW., and at las 
inlet, called Case's Inlet. 
The eastern shore of this northwest main 
branch. Between it and Carr's Inlet a long peninsula is cut out, which 
On the western side of this second main branch two narrow and long passages run out, 
x system of western branches and inlets. 
branch is without any well defined bay or side 
ought to have a name. 
which conduct to a comple 
The southern of these two passages is named Dana's Passage. i 
Between these two passages lies the great Hartstene island, to the west of which they unite 
again. bos 
From the waters behind (to the west of Hartstene island) branch out four narrow and long 
inlets, to the west Hamersly Inlet, to the W.SW. Totten Inlet, to the SW. Eld Inlet, to the 
south Budd's Inlet. All these inlets—each about eight nautical miles long and one-half to one 
mile broad—and likewise the long, narrow peninsula between them trend to one central point, 
in which they are united like the roots of a tree. | 
The southern extremity of Budd’s Inlet constitute the most southern waters of Admiralty 
Inlet. : 
Vancouver despatched, on the 19th of 
Point, his lieutenant, Peter Puget, throug 
through the Narrows, which Vancouver named, after the discoverer, Pug 
91 в 
May, 1792, from his central station at Restoration 
h the channel west of Vashon's island, who passed 
et Sound. 
