22 GEOGRAPHY OF OREGON. 



and reefs, on which the waves of the Pacific are driven with fury by the 

 prevailing north-west winds. Vessels not drawing more than eight feet 

 may, however, enter the Umqua, a small stream falling into the Pacific, 

 in ihe latitude of 42 degrees 51 minutes, immediately north of a remark- 

 able promontory called Cape Orford, probably the Cape Blanco of the old 

 Spanish navigators. Small vessels may also find anchorage in a cove or 

 recess of the coast, named by the Spaniards Port Trinidad, under the 

 parallel of 41 degrees 3 minutes, about forty miles north of Cape Mendo- 

 cino, and in some other spots; but no place on this coast can be said to 

 offer protection to vessels against winds or waves. 



North of the Columbia, the coast is less beset by dangers; and it offers, 

 immediately under the 47th parallel, one good port, for small vessels, 

 which was discovered in May, 1792, by Captain Gray, of Boston, and 

 named by him Bulfinch's Harbor, though it is more commonly called 

 Gray's Harbor, and is frequently represented on English maps as Whid- 

 bey's Bay. The only other spot worthy of particular notice on this part 

 of the coast is Destruction Island, near the continent, in latitude of 47^ 

 degrees, so called by the captain of an Austrian trading ship in 17S7, 

 in consequence of the murder of some of his men by the natives of 

 the adjacent country. 



The Strait of Fuca is an arm of the sea separating a great island from 

 the continent on the south and east, to which much interest was for some 

 time attached, from the supposition that it might be a channel connecting 

 the Atlantic with the Pacific north of America. It extends from the 

 ocean eastward about one hundred miles, varying in breadth from ten to 

 thirty miles, between the 48th and the 49th parallels of latitude ; thence 

 it turns to the north-west, in which direction it runs, first expanding into 

 a long, wide bay, and then contracting into narrow and intricate passages 

 among islands, three hundred miles farther, to its reunion with the Pacific, 

 under the 51st parallel. From its south-eastern extremity, a great gulf, 

 called Admiralty Inlet, stretches southward into the continent more than 

 one hundred miles, dividing into many branches, of which the principal 

 are Hood's Canal, on the west, and Puget's Sound, the southernmost, 

 extending nearly to the 47th parallel. This inlet possesses many excel- 

 lent harbors; and the country adjacent, being delightful and productive, 

 will, there is every reason to believe, in time become valuable, agricul- 

 turally, as well as commercially. There are many other harbors on the 

 Strait of Fuca, of which the principal are Port Discovery, near the 

 entrance of Admiralty Inlet, said by Vancouver to be one of the best in 

 the Pacific, and Poverty Cove, called Port Nunez Gaona by the Span- 

 iards, situated a few miles east of Cape Flattery. That cape, so named 

 by Cook, is a conspicuous promontory in the latitude of 48 degrees 27 

 minutes, near which is a large rock, called Tatooche's Island, united to the 

 promontory by a rocky ledge, at times partially covered by water. The 

 shore between the cape and Admiralty Inlet is composed of sandy cliffs 

 overhanging a beach of sand and stones ; from it the land gradually rises 

 to a chain of mountains, stretching southwardly along the Pacific to the 

 vicinity of the Columbia, the highest point of which received, in 1788, the 

 name of Mount Olympus. 



The interior of this part of America is, as already said, traversed by 

 many great ranges of mountains, running generally almost parallel with 

 each other, and with the coast : before describing them, however, it will 



