480 APPENDIX. 
Lewis, Missoula, Pacific, Pierce, Suwamish, Shoshonee, Skama 
nia, Snohomish, Spokane, Thurston, Wahkiacum, Walla Walla, 
and Whatcom. Olympia, the seat of the Territorial government, 
is situated at the head of Puget Sound, and in the center of the 
Western district of the Territory ; population about one thon- 
sand. The site is on gently-sloping land, which in 1849 was 
covered with a dense forest of very large evergreen trees, the 
roots and trunks of which are still seen in the streets and lots 
of the town. All the land adjacent is still covered with a simi- 
lar forest. The houses are built of wood. Large vessels 
lie about two miles from the town, the sound in front of it 
being very shallow at low tide. Two miles from Olympia, 
at the falls of the Des Chutes River, is the town of Tum- 
water, which contains two hundred inhabitants, and has the 
best site for a manufacturing town in the vicinity of Puget 
Sound. The river within a distance of half a mile falls seven- 
ty-five feet, and furnishes power to drive a large number of 
mills. The town has three saw-mills and two grist-mills. Van- 
couver, with a population of twelve hundred, is situated on 
the north bank of the Columbia River, very near the old tra- 
ding post of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the United States 
inilitary post of the same name. The site is a beautitul 
grassy slope, rising gently from the river. Steilacoom, on 
the east bank of Puget sound, about thirty miles from the 
capital of the territory, has a population of three hundred. 
Seattle, forty miles to the northward, on the same side of the 
sound, has two hundred inhabitants. Port Townsend (as 
the people of the Territory write and spell the name, though 
it is printed “ Port Townshend” on the government’s maps 
and charts) lies on the west trunk of Puget Sound, which 
is the name given popularly in the Territory to the sheet of 
water called Admiralty Inlet in the charts.. Port Townsend 
has a population of about one hundred and fifty persons, is 
the site of the only custom-house in the Territory, and has a 
military post in its vicinity. These places, small as they now 
are, promise to become towns of importance in the future. 
