I'M
,L milky aara "r, of thaW-of the g!Mi.W
i,h Hi. C-.lh.Jie M.jWy. lh M-gof
ano.and th,.r!,.,:,T,,(Hei.orDDCal
!, Int on purges similar to his own.
And now, after the Up "f s ceDtury,' "
culir-ly in order to remark that it ii a matter of con
gratuMion that Captain Vancouver did not have
among hi. " lip" on W " mwlprD 1 ,
gaW, a fint rlata .tail man of a fir.t class modern
new.pat.cr, a man familiar with the character and
value of iln, fnU, mines, fisheries and other
foundation, and l-ulwarki of mighty states. Does
anjbily at thi. day supi" that if England bad
known what mighty "elements of empire" lay'plas
tie and warm," in tho shadows of Baker and lUinier
and 11.x! and Adam, and Jefferson, that the bound
nry lino .f her es.iona on this coast would have
een .ettlM by treaty? Or that the good oflices of
tho wio and ju.t old Kainer Wilholm, as peaceful ar
bitrator, would have Wen preferred to the dread ar
bitramrnt of the .word and cannon? I think not.
The lot, incalculable in valae, rankles in tho bosoms
(f our trans-Atlantic rou.ini yet Ibs than ten
)tntt ag I heard a very intelligent Englishman re
rn.tk : " Ye., Oregon i. a great country; it will be a
great .tate, and to will Washington Territory, but
they .hould have Immu a British province." JuBt so;
but it i. a fr cry between "is" and "should have
Ihtd," or "might have liecn." My sometimo British
interlocutor ha., sinro he expressed his regrets, taken
the oath of allegiance to the .tars and stripes, and, it
it to I presumed, i. sati.fied with things as they are.
Vancouver also named Admiralty iulet, the main
arm of the great inland tea known generally as Puget
ound, though originally the Utter title was applied
nnly to that rtion of the wound between Tacoraa and
Oljmpia. Two years In-fore, Lieutenant Qaimpcr,
after whom the jx-ninsula on which Tort Towosend is
situated was named, ripWnl tho Htraits of Fnca in a
HpanUh vrwl and otwrml the entrance to Admiral
ty inlet, which he christened Eno. nada de Caamafio
(Caaa.fi. inlet), in honor of a Mlow officer of the
Hnih navy, but ho did not enter and explore it
Vancouver anchor! hit ,,., j port D;(Covory
bay, and sj.ent four weeks in exploring the entire
ound region in Ut. Ho then mm WU(kt we alj
bow to t a fct, Uut the entrance to Admiralty in.
let it the gateway to the entire sound region, that any
bound to any vrt, either on the inlet, sound or
Houl t canal, must Jam through tho .traits at Tort
Towotrnd, where the government, early recognizi
JUci.mmand.ng potion, ublihed the port of en
THE WEST SHORE.
try for that region as one of its first official acts when
the jurisdiction of the United States was extended
0Mount Baker is located in the northern part of the
western division of what is soon to be the great state
of Washington, within a few miles of the forty-ninth
parallel of latitude, the boundary line between the
British possessions and the United States. From its
unfailing reservoir are developed the innumerable
streams which find their outlet in that vast inland sea
generally known as Puget sound, through the bkagit
river, flowing southwesterly to its point of debouch
ment at La Conner, and the Nooksack river flowing
about due west into the sound at Lummi bay, one of
the broad and beautiful estuaries which diversify and
make splendid the glorious northwest. Ice and frost
and rain bring their cosmic forces to play npon the
granites and basalts and metamorphio rocks of that
vastt region of arctio solitude and desolation, and
tbeBe streams and rivers bear the silt, nature's ex
haustless fertilizer, the result of the processes of cen
turies of nature's secret chemistry, to bench land, ta
ble land, meadow land and tide land, which become
at once the servants and ministers of man's need and
luxury. Viewed from this merely physical and mate
rialistic standpoint, Mount Baker must, in the esti
mation of the intelligent mind, be regarded as a valu
ble factor in the prosperity of that immense region
which comes within the immediate scope of its be
nign influences. In a less practical age it would take
its place as a new Olympus or Mount Ida. Let that
pass.
Mount Baker deserves notice as something more
than the fountain head of fertilizing and commerce
bearing streams. It is the central point of many mag
nificent panoramas, in which all that is grand and
beautiful in earth, sky and water are the foregrounds,
the middle distances and the vanishing points, in
which the atmosphere, with a skill which no living
artist can hope to emulate, lays here a shadow, drops
there a dash of purple or e broad space of rose-hued
splendor, and flings on crag or flanking buttress a
high light which brings the whole majestic picture
into full relief. Seen from some lofty eminence, even
a hundred miles away, the rugged outlines of its fast
rotundity are " tempered all and softened into beauty."
Viewed from the bluffs or beach at Port Townsend,
at a time when the atmospherio conditions are favor
able, tho mountain and its surroundings present
scene of desolation, of upheaval and titanic fracture
and seismic convulsions, which, in the nature of things,
must have been in but small degree less terrible than
those which but a few years ago made Krakatoa the
swne of an event at which memory shudders and the
full horror of which the imagination fails to grasp-