barrens, the latter covered with pebbles of trap-rock, and sparsely wooded with oak. Across the mountains, the land is open prairie, well watered, with small and thinly wooded valleys. The country to the north of this, belonging to the Flatheads, Mr. W. reports as more abundant in timber and well adapted to settlements. The arable land in Washington Territory, west of the Columbia River, is estimated at 22,000 square miles. Its Governor thus spoke of its resources in January, 1854: "You are unquestionably rightly informed as to the waritime advantages of Puget's Sound, in affording a series of harbors almost unequaled in the world for capacity, safety, and facility of access; nor need you be told of their neighborhood to what are now the best whaling grounds of the Pacific. It is, however, only recently that the settlement of this part of our country has commenced to develop its resources, or to show the advantage which may be derived from its position, and it is these points which I desire to bring to your notice. That portion of Washington Territory lying between the Cascade Mountains and the ocean, although equaling in richness of soil and ease of transportation the best portion of Oregon, is heavily timbered, and time and labor are required for clearing its forests and opening the earth to the production of its fruits. The great body of the country, on the other hand, stretching castward from that range to the Rocky Mount ains, while it contains many fertile valleys and much good land suited to the farmer, is yet more especially a grazing country, one which, as population increases, promises in its cattle, its horses, and above all, its wool, to open a new and vast field to American enterprise. But in the mean time the staple of the land must continue to be the one which nature herself has planted, in the inexhaustible forests of fir, of spruce, and of cedar. Either in furnishing manufactured timber or spars of the first description for vessels, Washington Territory is unsurpassed by any portion of the Pacific coast."

A more recent traveler, who visited Washington in the summer of 1865, thus writes of that portion of the Territory lying on Puget's Sound: "It is the great lumber market of all the Pacific coast. Already a dozen saw-mills are located on its shores; one, which we visited, was 336 feet long, and turns out 100,000 feet of lumber daily; three ships and two barks, of 500 to 1,000 tons each, were loading with the product direct from the mill; and the present entire export from the sound, in prepared lumber, and masts and spars, reaches nearly to one hundred millions of feet yearly, and yields, at the average price of ten dollars a thousand, about one million dollars. San Francisco is the largest customer; but the Sandwich Islands, China, all the Pacific American ports, south and north, and even Buenos Ayres, around on the Atlantic, come here for building materials, and France finds here her cheapest and best spars and masts. Much of the shipping employed in the business is owned on the sound; one mill company has three vessels of from three hundred to one thousand tons each. The business is but in its very infancy; it will grow with the growth of the whole Pacific coast, and with the increasing dearth of fine ship-timber in other parts of the world for it is impossible to calculate the time

when, cut and saw as we may, all these forests shall be used up, and the supply become exhausted."

FOREST TREES.-Washington abounds in fine timber. Here is the same species of gigantic fir-tree which is found in Oregon and California, attaining a height of nearly 300 feet, and from 8 to 12 feet in diameter. The hills and valleys in the eastern part of the Territory, immediately west of the Rocky Mountains, are stated to be covered with a heavy growth of the finest timber. The forest trees around Puget's Sound are especially large, and comprise yellow fir, cedar, maple, oak, ash, spruce, hemlock, and alder. A recent correspondent states that there are at least 12 saw-mills at work, and 18 more in course of construction, and that there is lumber enough ready to freight a dozen ships. The cedar-tree of this region is represented as differing in some respects from either the red or white cedar of New England, though resembling both.

ANIMALS. The forests abound in game and wild animals; among the latter are the elk, deer, bear, fox, otter, beaver, muskrat, and rabbit; and among birds, swans, geese, brant, gulls, ducks, eagles, grouse, pheasants, partridges, woodcock, hawks, ravens, and robins. Perhaps no region on the globe more abounds in fish than Washington. This is especially true of Puget's Sound and the adjoining waters. Cod, mackerel, halibut, herring, and flounders; and of shell-fish, the oyster, crab, clam, lobster, and many other species are found. The salmon resort to the Columbia and its tributaries in immense shoals.

AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS.-By the census of 1860, Washington Territory, which then included the northern portion of Idaho, and the north-western part of Montana, had 300,897 acres of unimproved land in farms, valued at $1,116,202. The value of agricultural implements and machinery was $202,506. The number of horses was 5,005; asses and mules, 178; milch cows, 10,034; working oxen, 2,777; other cattle, 16,072; sheep, 10,162; and swine, 9,836. The value of the live stock was $1,147,681, and of animals slaughtered during the year, $105,108.

The yearly produce of wheat was 92,609 bushels; rye, 244; Indian corn, 4,792; oats, 158,001; wool, 20,720 pounds; peas and beans, 38,005 bushels; Irish potatoes, 191,354; barley, 1,715, and buckwheat, 977 bushels. The yearly value of the orchard products was $23,779, and of garden products for market, $27,749. The product of butter for the year was 157,802 pounds; cheese, 12,146 pounds; hay, 4,871 tons; beeswax, 564 pounds, and honey, 5,256 pounds. The home-made manufactures of the year were valued at $33,506.

MANUFACTURES.-There were in Washington Territory in 1860, according to the national census of that year, 52 manufacturing establishments, with a capital invested in the same of $1,296,700, using annually raw material, including fuel, valued at $505,000, employing, on an average, 886 male hands and 4 females, and producing yearly manufactured products valued at $1,405,000.

POPULATION.-The census of 1860 gave Washington Territory, as it then existed, an aggregate population of 11,594, beside tribal Indians estimated at 30,000. The number of white males in the Territory in

1860 was 8,420, and of white females, 3,144; total whites, including 426 taxed Indians, 11,564. The number of colored persons was 30. The present population of Washington is variously estimated at from 15,000 to 25,000. The truth probably lies between the extremes. COUNTIES AND COUNTY TOWNS.-Washington Territory had, at the beginning of the year 1866, the following counties. We annex the names of the county towns, and the population of each county, according to the census of 1860.

TOWNS.-Olympia, the capital of the Territory and of Thurston County, is situated at the head of Puget's Sound. It lies pleasantly under a hill, and contains from five hundred to six hundred inhabitants. The other more important towns or settlements are Nesqually, Steilacoom, New York, Seattle, Port Townsend, and New Dungeness, on Puget's Sound, and Admiralty Inlet; Pacific City, Cathlamet, Monticello, Fort Vancouver, and Cascade City, on the Columbia River; Cowlitz Farms and Wabassport, on or near the Cowlitz River; Pennscove, on Whidby's Island; and Wallula, a mining center in the south-east part toward Idaho.

THE COAST AND COAST TRADE.-Washington Territory possesses great natural advantages, having a vast seaboard on the Pacific Ocean, the Straits of St. Juan de Fuca, and adjacent waters. The Columbia River and its numerous tributaries flow through the Territory from the 49th to the 46th parallel of latitude.

The commerce of the people residing on the seaboard is principally confined to lumbering, fishing, and coal-mining. Large cargoes of spars, lumber, shingles, etc., are constantly shipped to San Francisco, the Sandwich Islands, South America, China, New Zealand, and ports in Europe. Large quantities of coal are shipped from Bellingham Bay. Oysters, salmon, and other varieties of fish are also exported to a large

extent.

The Columbia River forms the line of division between the State of Oregon and Washington Territory. Passing along in a northerly direc tion, the first place of importance on the sea-coast of Washington Territory is Shoalwater Bay, which is said to produce the finest flavored oysters on the coast. The country bordering on the Bay is settled by

men who combine the occupation of farming with that of fishing. Oysters in great quantities are annually shipped from Shoalwater Bay to San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland, and other places on the Pacific coast. Immense quantities of poles and spars are exported from this point. These, with about 30,000 bushels of oysters, make the value of the annual exports hence about $120,000.

Passing along the coast, about thirteen miles further north is Gray's Harbor. The region about this bay is settled by people who have erected lumber and planing-mills, and built up a town near the mouth of Chehalis River, which is navigable for boats for sixty miles, and drains a country of good agricultural land. Several smaller streams also empty into the bay.

North of Gray's Harbor are the Queniult, Raft, Queets, Ohahlats, Quilcuyats, and several smaller rivers emptying into the Pacific Ocean south of Cape Flattery, which forms the southern headland of that vast expanse of water known as the Straits of St. Juan de Fuca. The entrance to this strait is about fourteen miles wide, and the distance from the entrance to Whidby's Island, its eastern boundary, is about fourteen miles. The depth of water throughout the strait may be inferred from the fact that the officers of the United States Coast Survey found no bottom in its deepest parts, even with a hundred and fifty fathoms of line.

The Straits of Juan de Fuca is the main artery for the waters of Admiralty Inlet, Puget Sound, Possession Sound, Hood's Canal, Canal de Haro, Rosario Strait, Bellingham Bay, and the vast Gulf of Georgia, extending between Vancouver's Island and New Caledonia for a distance of one hundred and twenty, with an average width of twenty miles.

Sailing along the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the south or Washington Territory shore, Neah Harbor, Clallam Bay, Port Angeles, New Dungeness, and Port Townsend are passed; thence up Admiralty Inlet into Puget Sound to Budd's Inlet, at the head of which is located Olympia, the capital of Washington Territory. From this point to the 49th parallel of latitude the dividing line between the United States and the British Possessions-a large number of bays, harbors, and ports line the vast sheet of water extending the whole distance.

COLORADO.

COLORADO was organized as a Territory March 2, 1861, from parts of Kansas, Nebraska, and Utah, and is situated on each side of the Rocky Mountains, between latitude 37 and 41 degrees north, and longitude 25 and 32 degrees west from Washington. It is situated immediately west of the State of Kansas. Its geographical area, almost unequaled in position, is bisected from north to south by the primary Cordillera, or great mountain chain, which divides the waters of the Atlantic from those of the Pacific Ocean.

The eastern half of Colorado is occupied by an undulating plain, the western half by the stupendous Rocky Mountain ranges. The former, abounding in great rivers, is of very uniform fertility, checkered with arable and pastoral lands, alternating one with the other. It is favored with temperate seasons, mineral fuel, a salubrious atmosphere, and a fine climate. The mountains embrace every variety of structure, immense massiveness and altitude, fertile flanks of unfailing pastures, and stupendous forests. In their ever-varying scenery, no element of beauty or sublimity, of the very highest order, is wanting. In their vastness of bulk, they constitute a striking feature of the empire of the American people, there especially revealed in the grandest forms.

Such are the great advantages of climate, soil, and scenery which are presented to the eye of the observer and traveler on a superficial view. But science, and the untiring and ever-conquering energies of the American people, have developed in these mountain ranges, in the plains which spread themselves at their feet, and in the vast and fertile parks which are encircled by their flanks, a mineral and agricultural richness which the world had never previously conceived.

First and foremost of the mineral resources of the mountains is GOLD. To the extraction of this metal the energies of the people have been most successfully directed. For the first year in which labor to this end was systematically applied, gold was produced, in round numbers, to the amount of $5,000,000. During the succeeding year the sum of $8,000,000 was reached, and in 1863 the mines yielded about $12,000,000. There has been a continual increase since, and hereafter, as the art of saving the precious dust is better known and developed, and the amount of labor and capital increased, it may safely be estimated that at least $50,000,000 will be annually produced.

But, in addition to gold, the mountains, their flanks, and the parks they inclose, are rich in other mineral products. Silver, copper, lead, and iron have been discovered in largely paying quantities. Indications are abundant of the presence of cinnabar, platina, and precious stones. Bituminous coal, inexhaustible in quantity, is obtained in almost any part of Colorado.