BOTANY OF THE ROUTE. 
21 
and rich luxuriance of vegetation is more stinking as we pass close along the banks, and at 
every bend are new scenes of rural beauty as pleasing because uncommon in a new and wild 
country. For ten or twelve miles meadows, covered even now with fine green grass, occur 
alternately on either side, with intervening points of higher land covered with trees. Above 
the limits of tide-water is a change in the vegetation and surface, the upper valley being com¬ 
posed chiefly of the richest prairies, surrounded by the usual dense forests.” 
On the 18th of July following I went with a party to explore a route through this valley to 
the sound. “Very few of the Indians knew anything of the trail, as it had not been used for 
twenty years, or since the whole tribe of Willopahs inhabiting the valley were exterminated 
by smallpox. Reaching the first prairie, at the head of tide-water, we loaded a pack-horse 
with our provisions and blankets, and, each equipped with axe or gun, started on our pedes¬ 
trian adventure. The morning was delightful; the prairie covered with grass full three feet 
high, and adorned by a great variety of flowers. It yet scarcely showed any effects of the dry 
season which was just commencing. Ten of these prairies, varying from a quarter of a mile to 
a mile in extent, occur in this valley; their soil excellent and surface generally level, though 
sometimes undulating, and making the most beautiful of farms with scarcely any labor. The 
rest of the valley is also excellent in soil, but covered with trees, and along the river bank 
sometimes overflowed in winter.” 
Crossing the Coast range (to be hereafter more fully described in the account of the forests) 
we soon struck prairies on the upper Chehalis river. Here the gravelly soil characterizing the 
whole valley between the Coast and Cascade ranges, together with a drier climate, had pro¬ 
duced much more of the effects of the dry season than in the Willopah valley, and the grass, 
naturally shorter, was quite brown, while a very distinct group of flowers, still blooming in 
abundance, made it seem as if we had in the distance of a few miles reached an entirely new 
country. I recognized at once the characteristic plants of the dry prairie near Vancouver and 
along the Cathlapoot’l river, where the preceding summer I noted, in July, that “we passed 
through, in the distance of fifty miles, seven prairies from one to four miles in width, generally 
with abundant grass, rich soil, and forming a charming contrast to the almost impenetrable 
forests.” 
We rested a day at “ Boisfort prairie,” so called by a Canadian settler, the name being a 
French translation of the Indian name of the oak, which first appears here in going eastward. 
“It is one of the most beautiful of the little prairies we meet, like oases, in this wilderness 
of forest. Oval in form, about two and a half miles long by one in width, its surface gently 
undulating in long, terraced slopes. Near its centre stands a remai'kable mound, conical and 
about fifty feet high, probably formed by the action of water, though looking very much as if 
built purposely by ancient inhabitants for a citadel. 
‘ 1 The fine fields of grain just ripe, numerous cattle, and comfortable houses, with all the 
pleasant appliances of rural life, gave the place the air of an old settlement, although the 
twelve families there had been settled less than a year.” 
At short intervals, all along the upper Chehalis, and beyond it to Steilacoom, we passed 
through similar fine prairies, which occupy a large portion of this valley between the Coast 
and Cascade ranges. 
The “Nisqually plains,” about thirty square miles in extent, lie in irregularly oval form 
between Puget Sound and the Cascade range, with the Nisqually river on the south and the 
Puyallup north of them. Their surface is smooth and level, rising in successive terraces from 
