 17. Puget Sound Washington Territory, recently admitted into the Union as a State, lies between latitude 46° and 49° and longitude 117° and 125°, forming the northwest shoulder of the United States. The majestic range of the Cascade Mountains naturally divides the State into two distinct parts, called Eastern and Western Washington, different greatly from each other in almost every way. The western section, being less than half as large as the eastern, along with its copious rains and deep fertile soil, being clothed with forests of evergreens, while the eastern section is dry and mostly treeless, though fertile in many parts and producing immense quantities of wheat and hay. Few states are more fertile and productive in one way or another than Washington, or more strikingly varied in natural features or resources. Within her borders every kind of soil and climate may be found, the densest woods and driest plains, the smoothest levels and roughest mountains. She is rich in square miles, some 70,000 of them, in coal, timber and iron, and in sheltered inland waters that render these resources advantageously accessible. She also is already rich and busy workers, who work hard, though not always wisely, hacking, burning, blasting their way deeper into the wilderness, beneath the sky and beneath the ground. The wedges of development are being driven hard, and none of the obstacles or defenses of nature can long withstand the onset of this immeasurable industry. Puget Sound so justly famous the world over for the surprising size and excellence and abundance of its timber is a long, many-fingered arm of the sea, reaching southward from the head of the Strait of Wandafuka into the heart of the grand forests of the western portion of Washington, between the Cascade Range and the mountains of the coast. It is less than a hundred miles in length, but so numerous are the branches into which it divides, and so many its bays, harbors and islands at its entire shoreline is said to measure more than 1,800 miles. Throughout its whole vast extent, ships move in safety and find shelter from every wind that blows. The entire mountain girt sea-forming one grand unrivaled harbor and center for commerce. The forest trees press forward to the water around all the windings of the shores in most imposing array, as if they were courting their fate, coming down from the mountains far and near to offer themselves to the axe, thus making the place a perfect paradise for the lumberman. To the lover of nature the scene is enchanting. Water and sky, mountain and forest, clad in sunshine and clouds, are composed of landscape sublime in magnitude, yet exquisitely fine and fresh and full of glad rejoicing life. The shining waters stretch away into the leafy wilderness, now like the reaches of some majestic river, and again expanding into broad roomy spaces like mountain lakes, their farther edges fading gradually and blending with the pale blue of the sky. The wooded shores with an outer fringe of flowering bushes sweep onward in beautiful curves around bays and capes, and jutting promenatories innumerable. While the islands, with soft waving outlines, lavishly adorn with spruces and cedars, thicken and enrich the beauty of the waters, and the white-spirit mountains, looking down from the sky, keep watch and ward over all, faithful and changeless as the stars. All the way from the strait of Wanda Fuka up to Olympia, a hopeful town situated at the head of one of the farthest reaching of the fingers of the sound, we are so completely inland and surrounded by mountains that it is hard to realize that we are sailing on a branch of the Salt Sea. We are constantly reminded of Lake Tahoe. There is the same clearness of the water in calm weather, without any trace of the ocean swell, the same picturesque winding and sculpture of the shoreline and flowery, leafy legerience. Only here the trees are taller and stand much closer together, and the backgrounds are higher and far more extensive. Here too we find greater variety amid the marvelous wealth of islands and inlets, and also in the changing views dependent on the weather. As we double cape after cape and round the uncounted islands, new combinations come to view in an endless variety, sufficient to fill and satisfy the lover of wild beauty through a whole life. Often times in the stillest weather, when all the winds sleep and no sign of storms is felt or seen, silky clouds form and settle over all the land, leaving in sight only a circle of water with indefinite bounds, like views in mid-ocean. Then the clouds lifting, some islet will be presented standing alone, with the tops of its trees dipping out of sight in pearly gray fringes, or lifting higher and perhaps letting a ray of sunshine through some rift overhead. The whole island will be set free and brought forward in vivid relief amid the gloom, a girdle of silver light of dazzling brightness on the water about its shores, then darkening again and vanishing back into the general gloom. Thus island after island may be seen, singly or in groups, coming and going from darkness to light, like a scene of enchantment. Until at length the entire cloud ceiling is rolled away, and the colossal cone of Mount Rainier is seen in spotless white looking down over the forests from a distance of sixty miles, but so lofty and so massive and clearly outlined as to impress itself upon us as being just back of a strip of woods only a mile or two in breadth. For the tourist sailing to Puget Sound from San Francisco, there is but little that is at all striking in the scenery within reach, by the way, until the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca is reached. The voyage is about four days in length, and the steamers keep within sight of the coast, but the hills fronting the sea up to Oregon are mostly bare and uninviting. The magnificent redwood forests stretching along this portion of the California coast seeming to keep well back, away from the heavy winds, so that very little is seen of them. While there are no deep inlets or lofty mountains visible to break the regular monotony, along the coast of Oregon the woods of spruce and fir come down to the shore, kept fresh and vigorous by copious rains, and become denser and taller to the northward until rounding Cape Flattery we enter the Strait of Fuca. Where sheltered from the ocean gales the forests begin to hint the grandeur they attain in Puget Sound. Here the scenery in general becomes exceedingly interesting. For now, we have arrived at the Grand Mountain Walled Channel that forms the entrance to that marvelous network of inland waters that extends along the margin of the continent to the northward four thousand miles. This magnificent inlet was named for Juan de Fuca, who discovered it in 1592 while seeking a mythical strait supposed to exist somewhere in the north connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific. It is about 70 miles long, 10 or 12 miles wide, and extends to the eastward in a nearly straight line between the south end of Vancouver Island and the Olympic range of mountains on the mainland. Cape Flattery, the western termination of the Olympic range, is terribly rugged and jagged, and in stormy weather is utterly inaccessible from the sea. Then the ponderous rollers of the deep Pacific thunder amid its caverns and cliffs with the foam and uproar of a thousand Yosemite waterfalls. The bones of many a noble ship lie there and many a sailor. It would seem unlikely that any living thing should seek rest in such a place or find it. Nevertheless, frail and delicate flowers bloom there, flowers of both the land and the sea, heavy ungainly seals desport in the swelling waves, and find grateful retreats back in the inmost bores of its storm-lashed caverns. While in many a chink and hollow of the highest crags not visible from beneath, a great variety of waterfowl make homes and rear their young. But not always are the inhabitants safe, even in such wave-defended castles as these, for the Indians of the neighbouring shores venture forth in the calmest summer weather in their frail canoes to spear the seals in the narrow gorges amid the grinding, gurgling din of the restless waters. At such times also, the hunters make out to scale many of the apparently inaccessible cliffs for the eggs and young of the gulls and other water birds, occasionally losing their lives in these perilous adventures, which give rise to many an exciting story told around the campfires at night when the storms were loudest. Passing through the strait we have the Olympic mountains close at hand on the right, Vancouver Island on the left, and the snowy peak of Mount Baker straight ahead in the distance. During calm weather or when clouds are lifting and rolling off the mountains after a storm, all these views are truly magnificent. Mount Baker is one of that wonderful series of old volcanoes that once flamed along the summits of the Sierras and Cascades from Lassen to Mount St. Elias. Its fires are sleeping now and it is loaded with glaciers, streams of ice having taken the place of streams of glowing lava. Vancouver Island presents a charming variety of hill and dale, open sunny spaces and sweeps of dark forest rising in swell beyond swell to the high land in the distance. But the Olympic mountains most of all command attention, seen tellingly near and clear in all their glory, rising from the water's edge into the sky to a height of six or eight thousand feet. They bound the strait on the south side throughout its whole extent, forming a massive sustained wall, flowery and bushy at the base, a zigzag of snowy peaks along the top, which have ragged edged fields of ice and snow beneath them. Enclosed in wide amphitheaters opening to the waters of the strait through spacious forest filled valleys and liven with fine dashing streams. These valleys mark the course of the Olympic glaciers at the period of their greatest extension when they poured their tribute into that portion of the great northern ice sheet that over swept the south end of Vancouver Island and filled the strait with flowing ice as it is now filled with ocean water. The steamers of the sound usually stop at Esquimalt on their way up, thus affording tourists an opportunity to visit the interesting town of Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. The Victoria harbor is too narrow and difficult for access for the larger class of ships, therefore a landing has to be made at Esquimalt. The distance, however, is only about three miles and the way is delightful. Winding on through a charming forest of Douglas spruce with here and there grows of oak and madrone and a rich undergrowth of hazel, dogwood, willow, alder, spiraea, rubus, huckleberry, and wild rose. Pretty cottages occur at intervals along the road covered with honeysuckle and many an upswelling rock, freshly glaciated and furred with yellow mosses and lichen telling interesting stories of the icy past. Victoria is a quiet, handsome, breezy town, beautifully located on finely modulated ground at the mouth of the Canal de Arro, with charming views in front of islands and mountains and far reaching waters, ever changing in the shifting lights and shades of the clouds and sunshine. In the background there are a mile or two of field and forest and sunny oak openings, then comes the forest primeval, dense and shaggy and well nigh impenetrable. Notwithstanding the importance claimed for Victoria as a commercial center and the capital of British Columbia, it has a rather young, loose, jointed appearance. The government buildings and some of the business blocks on the main streets are well built and imposing in bulk and architecture. These are far less interesting and characteristic, however, than the mansions set in the midst of spacious pleasure grounds and the lovely home cottages embowered in honeysuckle and climbing roses. One soon discovers that this is no Yankee town. The English faces and the way that English has spoken alone would tell that. While in business quarters there is a staid dignity and moderation that is very noticeable and a want of American push and hurrah. Love of land and of privacy in homes is made manifest in the residences, many of which are built in the middle of fields and orchards or large city blocks and in the loving care with which these home grounds are planted. They are very beautiful. The fineness of the climate with its copious measure of warm moisture distilling and dew and fog and gentle bathing, laving rain give them a freshness and flouriness that is worth going far to see. Victoria is noted for its fine drives and everyone who can should either walk or drive around the outskirts of the town, not only for the fine views out over the water, but to see the cascades of bloom pouring over the gables of the cottages and the fresh wild woods with their flowery fragrant underbrush. Wild roses abound almost everywhere. One species blooming freely along the woodland pass is from two to three inches in diameter and more fragrant than any other wild rose I ever saw, excepting the sweet briar. This rose and three species of spirea fairly fill the air with fragrance after a shower and how brightly then do the red berries of the dogwood shine out from the warm yellow green of leaves and mosses. But still more interesting and significant are the glacial phenomena displayed hereabouts. All this exuberant tree bush and herbaceous vegetation cultivated or wild is growing upon moraine beds outspread by waters that issued from the ancient glaciers at the time of their recession and scarcely at all moved or in any way modified by post-glacial agencies. The town streets and the roads are graded in moraine material among scratched and grooved rock bosses that are as unweathered and telling as any to be found in the glacier channels of Alaska. The harbor also is clearly of glacial origin. The rock islets that rise here and there forming so marked a feature of the harbor are unchanged roche motonaise and the shores are grooved scratched and rounded in every way as glacial in all their characteristics as those of a newborn glacial lake. Most visitors to Victoria go to the stores of the Hudson's Bay Company presumably on account of the Romantic Associations or to purchase a bit of fur or some other wild indianish trinket as a memento. At certain seasons of the year when the hairy harvests are gathered in immense bales of skins may be seen in these unsavory warehouses. The spoils of many thousand hunts over mountain and plain by lonely river and shore. The skins of bears, wolves, beavers, otters, fishers, martins, lynxes, panthers, wolverine, reindeer moose, elk, wild goats, sheep, foxes, squirrels and many others of our poor earth-born companions and fellow mortals may here be found. Vancouver is the southmost and the largest of the countless islands forming the great archipelago that stretches a thousand miles to the northward. Its shores have been known a long time but little was known of the lofty mountains interior on account of the difficulties in the way of explorations, lake, bogs and shaggy tangled forests. It is mostly a pure savage wilderness without roads or clearings and silent so far as man is concerned. Even the Indians keep close to the shore, getting a living by fishing, dwelling together in villages and traveling almost wholly by canoes. White settlements are few and far between. Good agricultural lands occur here and there on the edge of the wilderness but they are hard to clear and have received but little attention thus far. Gold, the grand attraction that lights the way into all kinds of wildernesses and makes rough places smooth has been found but only in small quantities too small to make much motion. Almost all the industry of the island is employed under lumber and coal in which so far is known its chief wealth lies. Leaving Victoria for Port Townsend after we are fairly out on the free open water, Mount Baker is seen rising solitary over a dark breadth of forest making a glorious show in its pure white raiment. It is said to be about 11,000 feet high, is loaded with glaciers some of which come well down into the woods and never so far as I have heard has been climbed though in all probability it is not inaccessible. The task of reaching its base through the dense woods will be likely to prove of greater difficulty than the climb to the summit. In a direction a little to the left of Mount Baker and much nearer may be seen the island of San Juan, famous in the young history of the country for the quarrels concerning its rightful ownership between the Hudson's Bay Company and Washington Territory, quarrels which nearly brought on war with Great Britain. Neither party showed any lack of either pluck or gunpowder. General Scott was sent out by President Buchanan to negotiate, which resulted in a joint occupancy of the island. Small quarrels however continued to arise until the year 1874 when the peppery question was submitted to the emperor of Germany for arbitration. Then the whole island was given to the United States. San Juan is one of a thick set cluster of islands that fills the waters between Vancouver and the mainland, a little to the north of Victoria. In some of the intricate channels between these islands the tides run at times like impetuous rushing rivers rendering navigation rather uncertain and dangerous for the small sailing vessels that ply between Victoria and the settlements on the coast of British Columbia and the larger islands. The water is generally deep enough everywhere, too deep in most places for anchorage, and the winds shifting hither and thither or dying away altogether. The ships getting no direction from their helms are carried back and forth or are caught in some eddy where two currents meet and whirl round and round to the dismay of the sailors like a chip in a river whirlpool. All the way over to Port Townsend the Olympic mountains well maintain their massive imposing grandeur and present their elaborately carved summits in clear relief, many of which are out of sight in coming up the straight on account of being too near the base of the range. Turn to them as often as we may. Our admiration only grows the warmer the longer we dwell upon them. The highest peaks are Mount Constance and Mount Olympus said to be about 8,000 feet high. In two or three hours after leaving Victoria we arrive at the handsome little town of Port Townsend situated at the mouth of Puget Sound on the west side. The residential portion of the town is set on level top of the bluff that bounds Port Townsend Bay while another nearly level space of moderate extent reaching from the base of the bluff to the shoreline is occupied by the business portion thus making a town of two separate and distinct stories which are connected by long ladder-like flights of stairs. In the streets of the lower story while there is no lack of animation there is but little business noise as compared with the amount of business transacted. This in great part is due to the scarcity of horses and wagons. Farms and roads back in the woods are few and far between. Nearly all the tributary settlements are on the coast and communication is almost wholly by boats canoes and schooners hence country stages and farmers wagons and buggies with the whir and din that belong to them are wanting. This being the port of entry all vessels have to stop here and they make a lively show about the wharves and in the bay. The winds stir the flags of every civilized nation while the Indians in their long beaked canoes glide about from ship to ship satisfying their curiosity or trading with the crews. Keen traders these Indians are and few indeed of the sailors or merchants from any country ever get the better of them in bargains. Curious groups of people may often be seen in the streets and stores made up of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Scandinavians, Germans, Greeks, Moors, Japanese and Chinese of every rank and station and style of dress and behavior. Settlers from many a nook and bay and island up and down the coast, hunters from the wilderness, tourists on their way home by the sound and the Columbia River or to Alaska or California. The upper story of Port Townsend is charmingly located wide bright waters on one side flowing evergreen woods on the other. The streets are well laid out and well tended and the houses with their luxuriant gardens about them have an air of taste and refinement seldom found in town set on the edge of a wild forest. The people seem to have come here to make true homes attracted by the beauty and fresh breezy healthfulness of the place as well as by business advantages trusting to natural growth and advancement instead of restless booming methods. They perhaps have caught some of the spirits of calm moderation and enjoyment from their English neighbors across the water. Of late however this sober tranquility has begun to give way. Some whiffs from the whirlwind of real estate speculation up the sound having at length touched the town and ruffled the surface of its calmness. A few miles up the bay is Fort Townsend which makes a pretty picture with the green woods rising back of it and the calm water in front. Across the mouth of the sound lies the long narrow Whid Bay Island named by Vancouver for one of his lieutenants. It is about 30 miles in length and is remarkable in this region of crowded forests and mountains as being comparatively open and low. The soil is good and easily worked and a considerable portion of the island has been under cultivation for many years. Fertile fields, open park-like groves of oak and thick masses of evergreens succeed one another in charming combinations to make this the garden spot of the territory. Leaving Port Townsend for Seattle and Tacoma we enter the sound and sail down into the heart of the green aspiring forests and find, look where we may, beauty ever changing in lavish profusion. Puget Sound, the Mediterranean of America as it is sometimes called, is in many respects one of the most remarkable bodies of water in the world. Vancouver, who came here nearly a hundred years ago and made a careful survey of it, named the larger northern portion of it Admiralty Inlet and one of the long narrow branches, Hood's Canal, applying the name Puget Sound only to the comparatively small southern portion. The latter name, however, is now applied generally to the entire Inlet and is commonly shortened by the people hereabouts to the Sound. The natural wealth and commercial advantages of the Sound region were quickly recognized and the cause of the activity prevailing here is not far to seek. Vancouver, long before civilization touched these shores, spoke of it in terms of unstinted praise. He was sent out by the British government with the principal object in view of acquiring accurate knowledge as to the nature and extent of any water communication which may tend in any considerable degree to facilitate an intercourse for the purposes of commerce between the northwest coast and the country on the opposite side of the continent. Big traditions having long been current concerning a strait supposed to unite the two oceans. Vancouver reported that he found the coast from San Francisco to Oregon and beyond to present a nearly straight solid barrier to the sea without openings and we may well guess the joy of the old navigator on the discovery of these waters after so long and barren a search to the southward. His descriptions of the scenery, Mount Baker, Rainier, St. Helens, etc., were as enthusiastic as those of the most eager landscape lover of the present day, when scenery is in fashion. He says in one place, To describe the beauties of this region, will on some future occasion, be a very grateful task for the pen of a skilful penidourist. The serenity of the climate, the immeasurable pleasing landscapes, and the abundant fertility that unassisted nature puts forth require only to be enriched by the industry of man, with villages, mansions, cottages, and other buildings to render it the most lovely country that can be imagined. The labour of the inhabitants would be amply rewarded in the bounties which nature seems ready to bestow on cultivation. A picture so pleasing could not fail to call to our remembrance certain delightful and beloved situations in old England. So warm indeed were the praises he sung that his statements were received in England with a good deal of hesitation. But they were amply corroborated by Wilkes and others who followed many years later. Nothing, says Wilkes, can exceed the beauty of these waters and their safety. Not a shawl exists in the straits of Wanda Fouca, Admiralty Inlet, Puget Sound, or Hoods Canal that can in any way interrupt their navigation by a 74 gunship. I venture nothing in saying there is no country in the world that possesses waters like these. And again, quoting from the United States Coast Survey, For depth of water, boldness of approaches, freedom from hidden dangers, and the immeasurable sea of gigantic temper coming down to the very shores, these waters are unsurpassed, unapproachable. The sound region has a fine, fresh, clean climate, well washed both winter and summer with copious rains and swept with winds and clouds that come from the mountains and the sea. Every hidden nook in the depths of the woods is searched and refreshed, leaving no stagnant air, beaver meadows and lake basin, and low and willowy bogs, all are kept wholesome and sweet the year round. Cloud and sunshine alternate, embracing, cheering succession, and health and abundance follow the storms. The outer sea margin is sublimely dashed and drenched with ocean brine, the spicy scud sweeping at times far inland over the bending woods, the giant trees waving and chanting and hearty accord, as if surely enjoying it all. Heavy long continued rains occur in the winter months, then every leaf bathed and brightened rejoices. Filtering drops and currents through all the shaggy undergrowth of the woods go with tribute to the small streams, and these again to the larger, the rivers swell, but there are no devastating floods, for the thick felt of roots and mosses holds the abounding waters in check, stored in a thousand thousand fountains. Neither are there any violent hurricanes here, at least I never have heard of any, nor have I come upon their tracks. Most of the streams are clear and cool always, for their waters are filtered through deep beds of mosses and flow beneath shadows all the way to the sea. Only the streams from the glaciers are turbid and muddy. On the slopes of the mountains, where they rush from their crystal caves, they carry not only small particles of rock mud, worn off the sides and bottoms of the channels of the glaciers, but grains of sand and pebbles and large boulders, tons in weight, rolling them forward on their way, rumbling and bumping to their appointed places at the foot of steep slopes, to be built into rough bars and beds, while the smaller material is carried farther and outspread in flats, perhaps for coming wheat fields and gardens. The finest of it going out to sea, floating on the tides for weeks and months ere it finds rest on the bottom. Snow seldom falls to any great depth on the lowlands, though it comes in glorious abundance on the mountains, and only on the mountains does the temperature fall much below the freezing point. In the warmest summer weather, a temperature of eighty-five degrees or even more occasionally is reached, but not for long at a time. As such heat is speedily followed by a breeze from the sea, the most charming days here are days of perfect calm, when all the winds are holding their breath and not a leaf stirs. The surface of the sound shines like a silver mirror over all its vast extent, reflecting its lovely islands and shores, and long sheets of spangles flash and dance in the wake of every swimming seabird and boat. The sun, looking down on the tranquil landscape, seems conscious of the presence of every living thing on which he is pouring his blessings, while they in turn, with perhaps the exception of man, seem conscious of the sun as a benevolent father and stand hushed and waiting. Chapter 18 The Forests of Washington When we force our way into the depths of the forests, following any of the rivers back to their fountains, we find that the bulk of the woods is made up of the Douglas spruce Pseudo suga Douglasae, named in honor of David Douglas, an enthusiastic botanical explorer of early Hudson's Bay Times. It is not only a very large tree, but a very beautiful one, with lively bright green drooping foliage, handsome pendant cones, and a shaft exquisitely straight and regular. For so large a tree it is astonishing how many fine nourishment and space to grow on any given area. The magnificent shafts push their spires into the sky, close together, with as regular a growth as that of a well-tilled field of grain. And no ground has been better till for the growth of trees than that on which these forests are growing, for it has been thoroughly plowed and rolled by the mighty glaciers from the mountains, and sifted and mellowed and outspread in beds hundreds of feet in depth by the broad streams that issued from their fronts at the time of their recession after they had long covered all the land. The largest tree of the species that I have myself measured was nearly twelve feet in diameter at a height of five feet from the ground, and as near as I could make out under the circumstances about three hundred feet in length. It stood near the head of the sound not far from Olympia. I have seen a few others both near the coast and thirty or forty miles back in the interior that were from eight to ten feet in diameter, measured above their bulging in steps, and many from six to seven feet. I have heard of some that were said to be three hundred and twenty-five feet in height and fifteen feet in diameter, but none that I measured were so large, though it is not at all unlikely that such colossal giants do exist where conditions of soil and exposure are surpassingly favorable. The average size of all the trees of this species found up to an elevation on the mountain slopes of say two thousand feet above sea level, taken into account only what may be called mature trees two hundred and fifty to five hundred years of age, is perhaps at a vague guess not more than a height of one hundred and seventy-five or two hundred feet and a diameter of three feet, though of course throughout the richest sections the size is much greater. In proportion to its weight when dry the timber from this tree is perhaps stronger than that of any other conifer in the country. It is tough and durable and admirably adapted in every way for shipbuilding, piles, and heavy timbers in general, but its hardness and liability to warp render it much inferior to white or sugar pine for fine work. In the lumber markets of California it is known as organ pine and is used almost exclusively for spars, bridge timbers, heavy planking, and the framework of houses. The same species extends northward in abundance through British Columbia and southward through the coast and middle regions of Oregon and California. It is also a common tree in the canyons and hollows of the Wasatch Mountains in Utah where it is called red pine and on portions of the Rocky Mountains and some of the short ranges of the Great Basin. Along the coast of California it keeps company with the redwood wherever it can find a favorable opening. On the western slope of the Sierra with the yellow pine and incense cedar it forms a pretty well defined belt at a height of from 3000 to 6000 feet above the sea and extends into the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains in Southern California. But though widely distributed it is only in these cool moist northlands that it reaches its finest development, tall, straight, elastic, and free from limbs to an immense height growing down to tide water where ships of the largest size may lie close alongside and load at the least possible cost. Growing with the Douglas we find the white spruce or sitka pine as it is sometimes called. This also is a very beautiful and majestic tree frequently attaining a height of 200 feet or more in a diameter of five or six feet. It is very abundant in southeastern Alaska forming the greater part of the best forest there. Here it is found mostly around the sides of beaver dam and other meadows and on the borders of the streams especially where the ground is low. One tree that I saw felled at the head of the hop branch meadows on the upper Snow Qualmie River though far from being the largest I have seen measured 180 feet in length and four and a half in diameter and was 257 years of age. In habit in general appearance it resembles the Douglas spruce but it is somewhat less slender and the needles grow close together all around the branchlets and are so stiff and sharp pointed on the younger branches that they cannot well be handled without gloves. The timber is tough close grained white and looks more like pine than any other of the spruces. It splits freely makes excellent shingles and in general use in house building takes the place of pine. I've seen logs of this species a hundred feet long and two feet in diameter at the upper end. It was named in honor of the old Scotch botanist Archibald Menzies who came to this coast with Vancouver in 1792. The beautiful hemlock spruce with its warm yellow-green foliage is also common in some portions of these woods. It is tall and slender and exceedingly graceful in habit before old age comes on but the timber is inferior and is seldom used for any other than the roughest work such as wharf building. The Western Arbor Vite or Thuja Gigantea grows to a size truly gigantic on low-rich ground specimens 10 feet in diameter and 140 feet high are not at all rare. Some that I have heard of are said to be 15 and even 18 feet thick. Clad in rich glossy plumes with gray lichens covering their smooth tapering bowls, perfect trees of this species are truly noble objects and well worthy the place they hold in these glorious forests. It is of this tree that the Indians make their fine canoes. Of the other conifers that are so happy as to have place here there are three furs, three or four pines, two cypresses, a yew, and another spruce, the Abbey's Pataniana. This last is perhaps the most beautiful of all the spruces but being comparatively small and growing only far back on the mountains it receives but little attention from most people. Nor is there room in a work like this for anything like a complete description of it or of the others I have just mentioned. Of the three furs, one Pisciagrandis grows near the coast and is one of the largest trees in the forest, sometimes attaining a height of 250 feet. The timber however is inferior in quality and not much sought after while so much that is better as within reach. One of the others, P. immobilis, variant nobilis, forms magnificent forest by itself at a height of about 3,000 to 4,000 feet above the sea. The rich plushy plume-like branches grow in regular whirls around the trunk and on the topmost whirls standing erect are the large beautiful cones. This is far the most beautiful of all the furs. In the Sierra Nevada it forms a considerable portion of the main forest belt on the western slope and it is there that it reaches its greatest size and greatest beauty. The third species, P. subalpina, forms together with Abbey's Pataniana, the upper edge of the timberline on the portion of the Cascades opposite the sound. A thousand feet below the extreme limit of tree growth it occurs in beautiful groups amid park-like openings where flowers grow in extravagant profusion. The pines are nowhere abundant in the state. The largest, the yellow pine, Pinus ponderosa, occurs here and there on margins of dry gravelly prairies and only in such situations have I yet seen it in this state. The others, P. monticola and P. contorta are mostly restricted to the upper slopes of the mountains and though the former of these two attains a good size and makes excellent lumber it is mostly beyond reach at present and is not abundant. One of the cypresses cupressus losoniana grows near the coast and is a fine large tree clothed like the arbor vitae in a glorious wealth of flat feathery branches. The other is found here and there well up toward the edge of the timberline. This is the fine Alaska cedar, C. nutcontensis, the lumber from which is noted for its durability, fineness of grain and beautiful yellow color and for its fragrance which resembles that of sandalwood. The Alaska Indians make their canoe paddles of it and weave matting and coarse cloth from the fibrous brown bark. Among the different kinds of hardwood trees are the oak, maple, madrona, birch, alder, and wild apple, while large cottonwoods are common along the rivers and shores of the numerous lakes. The most striking of these to the traveler is the menzies are buddhas or madrona as it is popularly called in California. Its curious red and yellow bark, large thick glossy leaves, and panicles of waxy looking greenish white urn-shaped flowers render it very conspicuous. On the bowls of the younger trees and on all the branches the bark is so smooth and seamless that it does not appear as bark at all but rather the naked wood. The whole tree with the exception of the larger part of the trunk looks as though it had been thoroughly peeled. It is found sparsely scattered along the shores of the sound and back in the forest also on open margins where the soil is not too wet and extends up the coast on Vancouver Island beyond Nanaimo. But in no part of the state does it reach anything like the size and beauty of proportions that it attains in California, few trees here being more than 10 or 12 inches in diameter and 30 feet high. It is however a very remarkable looking object standing there like some lost or runaway native of the tropics, naked and painted beside that dark mossy ocean of Northland conifers. Not even a palm tree would seem more out of place here. The oak so far as my observation has reached seem to be most abundant and to grow largest on the islands of the San Juan and Widbee archipelago. One of the three species of maples that I have seen is only a bush that makes tangles on the banks of the rivers. Of the other two one is a small tree crooked and moss grown holding out its leaves to catch the light that filters down through the close set spires of the great spruces. It grows almost everywhere throughout the entire extent of the forest until the higher slopes of the mountains are reached and produces a very picturesque and delightful effect relieving the bareness of the great shafts of the evergreens without being close enough in its growth to hide them wholly or to cover the bright mossy carpet that is spread beneath all the dense parts of the woods. The other species is also very picturesque and at the same time very large, the largest tree of its kind that I have ever seen anywhere. Not even in the great maple woods of Canada have I seen trees either as large or with so much striking picturesque character. It is widely distributed throughout western Washington but is never found scattered among the conifers in the dense woods. It keeps together mostly in magnificent groves by itself on the damp levels along the banks of streams or lakes where the ground is subject to overflow in such situations it attains the height of 75 to 100 feet in a diameter of 4 to 8 feet. The trunk sends out large limbs toward its neighbors laden with long drooping mosses beneath and rows of ferns on their upper surfaces thus making a grand series of richly ornamented interlacing arches with the leaves laid thick overhead rendering the underwood spaces delightfully cool and open. Never have I seen a finer forest ceiling or a more picturesque one while the floor covered with tall ferns and rubus and thrown into hillocks by the bulging roots matches it well. The largest of these maple groves that I have yet found is on the right bank of the Snow Kwame River about a mile above the falls. The whole country hereabouts is picturesque and interesting in many ways and well worthy of visit by tourists passing through the sound region since it is now accessible by rail from Seattle. Looking now at the forest in a comprehensive way we find in passing through them again and again from the shores of the sound to their upper limits that some portions are much older than others, the trees much larger and the ground beneath them strewn with immense trunks in every stage of decay representing the several generations of growth everything about them giving the impression that these are indeed the forest primeval while in the younger portions where the elevation of the ground is the same as to the sea level and the species of trees are the same as well as the quality of the soil apart from the moisture which it holds the trees seem to be and are mostly of the same age perhaps from 100 to 2 or 300 years with no gray bearded venerable patriarchs forming tall majestic woods without any grandfathers. When we examine the ground we find that it is as free from those mounds of brown crumbling wood and mossy ancient fragments as are the growing trees from very old ones then perchance we come upon a section farther up the slopes towards the mountains that has no trees more than 50 years old or even 15 or 20 years old these last show plainly enough that they have been devastated by fire as the black melancholy monuments rising here and there above the young growth bear witness then with this fiery suggestive testimony on examining those sections whose trees are 100 years old or 200 we find the same fire records though heavily veiled with mosses and lichens showing that a century or two ago the forest that stood there had been swept away in some tremendous fire at a time when rare conditions of drought made their burning possible then the bare ground sprinkled with the winged seed from the edges of the burned district a new forest sprang up nearly every tree starting at the same time or within a few years thus producing the uniformity of size we find in such places while on the other hand in those sections of ancient aspect containing very old trees both standing and fallen we find no traces of fire nor from the extreme dampness of the ground can we see any possibility of fire ever running there fire then is the great governing agent in forest distribution and to a great extent also in the conditions of forest growth where fertile lands are very wet one half the year and very dry the other there can be no forest at all where the ground is damp with drought occurring only at intervals of centuries fine forest may be found other conditions being favorable but it is only where fires never run that truly ancient forests of pitchy coniferous trees may exist when the washington forests are seen from the deck of a ship out in the middle of the sound or even from the top of some high commanding mountain the woods seem everywhere perfectly solid and so in fact they are in general found to be the largest openings are those of the lakes and prairies the smaller of beaver meadows bogs and the rivers none of them large enough to make a distinct mark in comprehensive views of the lakes there are said to be some 30 in kings county alone the largest lake washington being 26 miles long and four miles wide another which enjoys the duckish name of lake squawk is about 10 miles long both are pure and beautiful line embedded in the green wilderness the rivers are numerous and are but little affected by the weather flowing with deep steady currents the year round they are short however none of them drawing their sources from beyond the cascade range some are navigable for small steamers on their lower courses but the openings they make in the woods are very narrow the tall trees on their banks leaning over in some places making fine shady tunnels the largest of the prairies that I have seen lies to the south of Tacoma on the line of the portland and Tacoma railroad the ground is dry and gravelly a deposit of water wash cobbles and pebbles derived from moraines conditions which readily explain the absence of trees here and on other prairies adjacent to yelma berries grow and lavish abundance enough for man and beast with thousands of tons to spare the woods are full of them especially about the borders of the waters and meadows where the sunshine may enter nowhere in the north does nature set a more beautiful table there are huckleberries of many species red blue and black some of them growing close to the ground others on bushes eight to ten feet high also salil berries growing on a low weak stem bush a species of goltheria seldom more than a foot or two high this has pale pea green glossy leaves two or three inches long and half an inch wide and beautiful pink flowers earn shape that make a fine rich show the berries are black when ripe are extremely abundant and with the huckleberries form an important part of the food of the Indians who beat them into paste dry them and store them away for winter use to be eaten with their oily fish the salmon berry also is very plentiful growing in dense prickly tangles the flowers are as large as wild roses and of the same color and the berries measure nearly an inch in diameter besides these there are gooseberries currents raspberries blackberries and in some favored spots strawberries the mass of the underbrush of the woods is made up in great part of these berry bearing bushes together with white flowered spirea hazel dogwood wild rose honeysuckle symphoricharpus etc but in the depths of the woods where a little sunshine can reach the ground there is but little underbrush of any kind only a very light growth of huckleberry and rubus and young maples in most places the difficulties encountered by the explorer in penetrating the wilderness are presented mostly by the streams and bogs with their tangled margins and the fallen timber and thick carpet of moss covering all the ground not withstanding the tremendous energy displayed and lumbering in the grand scale on which it is being carried on and the number of settlers pushing into every opening in search of farmlands the woods of washington are still almost entirely virgin and wild without trace of human touch savage or civilized indians no doubt have ascended most of the rivers on their way to the mountains to hunt the wild sheep and goat to obtain wool for their clothing but with food and abundance on the coast they had little to tempt them into the wilderness and the monuments they have left in it are scarcely more conspicuous than those of squirrels and bears far less so than those of the beavers which in damning the streams have made clearings and meadows which will continue to mark the landscape for centuries nor is there much in these woods to tempt the farmer or cattle razor a few settlers established homes on the prairies or open borders of the woods and in the valleys of the chahalas and cowlits before the gold days of california most of the early immigrants from the eastern states however settled in the fertile and open willamid valley or organ even now when the search for land is so keen with the exception of the bottom lands around the sound and on the lower reaches of the rivers there are comparatively few spots of cultivation in western washington on every meadow or opening of any kind someone will be found keeping cattle planting hopfines or raising hay vegetables and patches of grain all the large spaces available even back near the summits of the cascade mountains were occupied long ago the newcomers building their cabins where the beavers once built theirs keep a few cows and industriously seek to enlarge their small meadow patches by chopping girdling and burning the edge of the encircling forest gnawing like beavers and scratching for a living among the black and stumps and logs regarding the trees as their greatest enemies a sort of larger pernicious weed immensely difficult to get rid of but all these are as yet mere spots making no visible scar in the distance and leaving the ground stretches of the forest as wild as they were before the discovery of the continent for many years the axe has been busy around the shores of the sound and ships have been falling in perpetual storm like flakes of snow the best of the timber has been cut for a distance of eight or ten miles from the water and to a much greater distance along the streams deep enough to float the logs railroads to have been built to fetch the in the logs from the best bodies of timber otherwise inaccessible except at great cost none of the ground however has been completely denuded most of the young trees have been left together with the hemlocks and other trees undesirable in kind or in some way defective so that the neighboring trees appear to have closed over the gaps make up the removal of the larger and better ones maintaining the general continuity of the forest and leaving no sign on the silvan sea at least as seen from a distance in felling the trees they cut them off usually at a height of six to twelve feet above the ground so as to avoid cutting through the swollen base where the diameter is so much greater in order to reach this height the chopper cuts a notch about two inches wide and three or four deep and drives a board into it on which he stands while at work in case the first notch cut as high as he can reach is not high enough he stands on the board that has been driven into the first notch and cuts another thus the ax man may often be seen at work standing eight or ten feet above the ground if the tree is so large that with his long handle axe the chopper is unable to reach to the farther side of it than a second chopper is set to work each cutting halfway across and when the tree is about to fall worn by the faint crackling of the strained fibers they jump to the ground and stand back out of danger from flying limbs while the noble giant that had stood erect in glorious strength and beauty century after century bows low at last and with gasp and groan and booming throb falls to earth then with long saws the trees are cut into logs of the required length peeled loaded upon wagons capable of carrying a weight of eight or 10 tons hauled by a long string of oxen to the nearest available stream or railroad and floated or carry to the sound there the logs are gathered into booms and towed by steamers to the mills where workmen with steel spikes in their boots leap lightly with easy poise from one to another and by means of long pike poles push them apart and selecting such as are at the time required push them to the foot of a chute and drive dogs into the ends when they are speedily hauled in by the mill machinery alongside the saw carriage and placed and fixed in position then with sounds of greedy hissing and growling they are rushed back and forth like enormous shuttles and in an incredibly short time they are lumber and are aboard the ships lying at the mill wharves many of the long slender bowls so abundant in these woods are safe for spars and so excellent is their quality that they are in demand in almost every shipyard of the world thus these trees felled and stripped of their leaves and branches are raised again transplanted and set firmly erect given roots of iron and a new foliage of flapping canvas and sent to sea on they speed and glad free motion cheerily waving over the blue heaving water responsive to the same winds that rocked them when they stood at home in the woods after standing in one place all their lives they now like sightseeing tourists go around the world meeting many a relative from the old home forest some like themselves wandering free clad and broad canvas foliage others planted head downward in mud holding wharf platforms aloft to receive the wares of all nations the mills of Puget Sound and those of the redwood region of california are said to be the largest and most effective lumber makers in the world Tacoma alone claims to have eleven saw mills and Seattle about as many while at many other points on the sound where the conditions are particularly favorable there are immense lumbering establishments as at port's Blakely Madison Discovery Gamble Ludlow etc with a capacity altogether of over three million feet a day nevertheless the observer coming up the sound sees not nor hears anything of the sphere storm of steel that is devouring the forest say perhaps the shriek of some whistle or the columns of smoke that mark the position of the mills all else seems as serene and unscathed as the silent watching mountains end of chapter 18 chapter 19 of steep trails this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by John Denison steep trails by John Muir chapter 19 as one strolls in the woods about the logging camps most of the lumbermen are found to be interesting people to meet kind and obliging and sincere full of knowledge concerning the bark and sapwood and heartwood of the trees they cut and how to fell them without unnecessary breakage on ground where they may be most advantageously sawed into logs and loaded for removal the work is hard and all the older men have a tired somewhat haggard appearance their faces are doubtful in color neither sickly nor quite healthy looking and seemed with deep wrinkles like the bark of the spruces but with no trace of anxiety their clothing is full of rosin and never wears out a little of everything in the woods is stuck fast to these loggers and their trousers grow constantly thicker with age in all their movements and gestures they are heavy and deliberate like the trees above them and they walk with a swaying rocking gate altogether free from quick jerky fussiness for chopping and log rolling have quenched all that they are also slow of speech as if outreaching branches of the mine seem to have been withered and killed with fatigue leaving their lives little more than dry lumber many a tree have these old axmen felled but round shoulder and stooping they too are beginning to lean over many of their companions are already beneath the moss and among those that we see at work some are now dead at the top bald leafless so to speak and tottering to their fall a very different man seen now and then at long intervals but usually invisible is the free roamer of the wilderness hunter prospector explorer seeking he knows not what lie than sinewy he walks erect making his way with a skill of wild animals all his senses in action watchful and alert looking keenly at everything in sight his imagination well nourished in the wealth of the wilderness coming into contact with free nature in a thousand forms drinking at the fountains of things responsive to wild influences as trees to the winds well he knows the wild animals his neighbors what fishes are in the streams what birds in the forest and where food may be found hungry at times and weary he has corresponding enjoyment in eating and resting and all the wilderness is home some of these rare happy rovers die alone among the leaves others half settle down and change in part into farmers each making choice of some fertile spot where the landscape attracts him builds a small cabin where with few wants to supply from garden or field he hunts and farms in turn going perhaps once a year to the settlements until night begins to draw near and like far shadows thickens into darkness and his day is done in these washington wilds living alone all sorts of men may per chance be found poets philosophers and even full-blown transcendentalists though you may go far to find them Indians are seldom to be met with away from the sound accepting about the few outlying hop branches to which they resort to great numbers during the picking season nor in your walks in the woods will you be likely to see many of the wild animals however far you may go with the exception of the douglas squirrel and the mountain goat the squirrel is everywhere and the goat you can hardly fail to find if you climb any of the high mountains the deer once very abundant may still be found on the islands and along the shores of the sound but the large gray wolves render their existence next to impossible at any considerable distance back in the woods of the mainland as they can easily run them down unless they are near enough to the coast to make their escape by plunging into the water and swimming to the islands offshore the elk and perhaps also the moose still exist in the most remote and inaccessible solitudes of the forest but their numbers have been greatly reduced of late and even the most experienced hunters have difficulty in finding them of bears there are two species the black and the large brown the former by far the more common of the two on the shaggy bottom lands where berries are plentiful and along the rivers while salmon are going up to spawn the black bear may be found fat and at home many are killed every year both for their flesh and skins the large brown species likes higher and open ground he is a dangerous animal a near relative of the famous grizzly and wise hunters are very fond of letting him alone the towns of pujit sound are of a very lively progressive and aspiring kind fortunately with abundance of substance about them to warrant their ambition and make them grow like young sapling sequoias they're sending out their roots far and near for nourishment counting confidently on longevity and grandeur of stature seattle and to coma are present far in the lead of all others in the race for supremacy and these two are keen active rivals to all appearances well matched to coma occupies near the head of the sound a sight of great natural beauty it is the terminus of the northern pacific railroad and calls itself the city of destiny seattle is also charmingly located about 20 miles down the sound from to coma on elliott bay it is the terminus of the seattle lakeshore and eastern railroad now in process of construction and calls itself the queen city of the sound and the metropolis of washington what the populations of these towns number i am not able to say with anything like exactness they're probably about the same size and they each claim to have about 20 000 people but their figures are so rapidly changing and so often mixed up with counts that refer to the future that exact measurements of either of these places are about as hard to obtain as measurements of the clouds of a growing storm their edges run back from miles into the woods among the trees and stumps and brush which hide a good many of the houses and the stakes which mark the lots so that without being as yet very large towns they seem to fade away into the distance but though young and loose jointed they are fast talking on the forms and manners of old cities putting on airs as someone say like boys in haste to be men they are already towns with all modern improvements first class in every particular as is said of hotels they have electric motors and lights paved broadways and boulevards substantial business blocks schools churches factories and foundries the lusty titanic clang of boiler making may be heard there and plenty of the languid music of pianos mingling with the babble noises of commerce carried on in a hundred tongues the main streets are crowded with bright wide awake lawyers ministers merchants agents for everything under the sun ox drivers and loggers and stiff gummy overalls backslanting dudes well tailored and shiny and fashions and bonnets of every feather and color bloom gaily in the noisy throng and advertise london and paris vigorous life and strife were to be seen everywhere the spirit of progress is in the air still it is hard to realize how much good work is being done here of a kind that makes for civilization the enthusiastic exalting energy displayed in the building of new towns railroads and mills in the opening of mines of coal and iron and the development of natural resources in general to many especially in the atlantic states washington is hardly known at all it is regarded as being yet a far wild west a dim nebulous expanse of woods by those who do not know that railroads and steamers have brought the country out of the wilderness and abolish the old distances it is now near to all the world and is in possession of a share of the best of all that civilization has to offer while on some of the lines of advancement it is at the front not withstanding the sharp rivalry between different sections and towns the leading men mostly pulled together for the general good and glory building buying borrowing to push the country to its place keeping arithmetic busy and counting population present and to come ships towns factories tons of coal and iron feet of lumber miles of railroad americans scandinavians irish scotch and germans being joined together in the white heat of work like religious crowds in time of revival who have forgotten sectarianism it is a fine thing to see people in hot earnest about anything therefore however extravagant and hide the brag ascending from pujit sound in most cases it is likely to appear partnable and more seattle was named after an old indian chief who lived in this part of the sound he was very proud of the honor and lived long enough to lead his grandchildren about the streets the greater part of the lower business portion of the town including a long stretch of wharves and warehouses built on piles was destroyed by fire a few months ago with immense loss the people however are in no wise discouraged and air long the loss will be gained in as much as a better class of buildings chiefly of brick are being erected in place of the inflammable wooden ones which with comparatively few exceptions were built of pitchy spruce with their own scenery so glorious ever on show one would at first thought suppose that these happy pujit sound people would never go sightseeing from home like less favored mortals but they do all the same some go boating on the sound or on the lakes and rivers or with their families make excursions at small cost on the steamers others will take the train to the franklin and new castle or carbon river coal mines for the sake of the 30 or 40 mile rides through the woods and a look into the black depths of the underworld others again take the steamers for victoria phraser river or vancouver the new ambitious town at the terminus of the canadian railroad thus getting views of the outer world in a near foreign country one of the regular summer resorts of this region where people go for fishing hunting and the healing of diseases is the green river hot springs in the cascade mountains 61 miles east of to coma on the line of the northern pacific railroad green river is a small rocky stream with picturesque banks and derives its name from the beautiful pale green hue of its waters among the most interesting of all the summer rest and pleasure places is the famous hop ranch on the upper snow qualmy river 30 or 40 miles eastward from seattle here the dense forest opens allowing fine free views of adjacent mountains from a long stretch of ground which is half meadow half prairie level and fertile and beautifully diversified with outstanding groves of spruces and alders and rich flowery fringes of spirea and wild roses the river meandering deep and tranquil through the midst of it on the portions most easily cleared some 300 acres of hop vines have been planted and are now in full bearing yielding it is said at the rate of about a ton of hops to the acre they are a beautiful crop these vines of the north pillars of verdure and regular rows seven feet apart and eight or ten feet in height the long vigorous shoots sweeping around in fine wild freedom and the light leafy cones hanging in loose handsome clusters perhaps enough of hops might be raised in washington for the wants of all the world but it would be impossible to find pickers to handle the crop most of the picking is done by indians and to this fine clean profitable work they come in great numbers in their canoes old and young of many different tribes bringing wives and children and household goods in some cases from a distance of five or six hundred miles even from far alaska then they too grow rich and spend their money on red cloth and trinkets about a thousand indians are required as pickers at the snow qualmy ranch alone and a lively and merry picture they make in the field arrayed and bright showy calicoes lowering the rustling vine pillars with incessant song singing and fun still more striking are their queer camps on the edges of the fields or over on the riverbank with the firelight shining on their wild jolly faces but woe to the ranch should firewater get there but the chief attractions here are not found in the hops but in trout fishing and bear hunting and in the two fine falls on the river formally the trip from seattle was a hard one over corduroy roads now it is reached in a few hours by rail along the shores of lake washington and lake squawk through a fine sample section of the forest and past a brow at the main snow qualmy fall from the hotel at the ranch village a road to the fall leads down the right bank of the river through the magnificent maple woods i've mentioned elsewhere and fine views of the fall may be had on that side both from above and below it is situated on the main river where it plunges over a sheer precipice about 240 feet high in leaving the level meadows of the ancient lake basin and in general way it resembles the well-known novata fall in yosemite having the same twisted appearance at the top and the free plunge and numberless comet shaped masses into a deep pool 75 or 80 yards in diameter the pool is of considerable depth as is shown by the radiating well-beating foam and mist which is of a beautiful rose color at times of exquisite fineness of tone and by the heavy waves that lash the rocks in front of it though to a californian the height of this fall would not seem great the volume of water is heavy and all the surroundings are delightful the maple forest of itself worth a long journey the beauty of the river riches above and below and the views down the valley afar over the mighty forest with all its lovely trimmings of ferns and flowers make this one of the most interesting falls i have ever seen the upper fall is about 70 feet high with bouncing rapids at head and foot set in a romantic dell thatched with dripping mosses and ferns and empowered in dense evergreens and blooming bushes the distance to it from the upper end of the meadows being about eight miles the road leads through majestic woods with ferns 10 feet high beneath some of the thickets and across a gravelly plain deforested by fire many years ago orange lilies are plentiful and handsome shining mats of the kinek kinek sprinkled with bright scarlet berries from a place called hunts at the end of the wagon road a trail leads through lush dripping woods never dry to thuja and mertans menzies and douglas spruces the ground is covered with the best moss work of the moist lands of the north made up mostly of the various species of hypnum with some liverworts mercantia jungramania etc in broad sheets and bosses where never a dust particle floated and where all the flowers fresh with mist and spray are wetter than water lilies the pool at the foot of the fall is a place surpassingly lovely to look at with the enthusiastic rush and song of the falls the majestic trees overhead leaning over the brink like listeners eager to catch every word of the white refreshing waters the delicate maiden hairs and aspleniums with fronds outspread gathering the rainbow sprays and myriads of hooded mosses every cup fresh and shining end of chapter 19 chapter 20 of steep trails this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville South Carolina steep trails by John Muir chapter 20 and ascent of Mount Rainier ambitious climbers seeking adventures and opportunities to test their strength and skill occasionally attempt to penetrate the wilderness on the west side of the sound and push on to the summit of Mount Olympus but the grandest excursion of all to be made hereabouts is to Mount Rainier to climb to the top of its icy crown the mountain is very high 14,400 feet and laden with glaciers that are terribly roughened and interrupted by crevasses and ice cliffs footnote a careful redetermination of the height of Rainier made by professor A. G. McAddy in 1905 gave an altitude of 14,394 feet the standard dictionary wrongly describes it is the highest peak 14,363 feet within the United States the United States Baydecker and railroad literature overstated's altitude by more than a hundred feet end of footnote only good climbers should attempt to gain the summit led by a guide of proved nerve and endurance a good trail has been cut through the woods to the base of the mountain on the north but the summit of the mountain never has been reached from this side though many brave attempts have been made upon it last summer I gained the summit from the south side in a day and a half from the timber line without encountering any desperate obstacles that could not in some way be passed in good weather I was accompanied by Keith the artist professor Ingra ham and five ambitious young climbers from Seattle we were led by the veteran mountaineer and guide van trump of yelm who many years before guided general Stevens in his memorable ascent and later Mr. Bailey of Oakland with a cumbersome abundance of campstools and blankets we set out from Seattle traveling by rail as far as yelm prairie on the Tacoma and Oregon road here we made our first camp and arranged with Mr. Longmire a farmer in the neighborhood for pack and saddle animals the noble king mountain was in full view from here glorifying the bright sunny day with his presence rising in godlike majesty over the woods with a magnificent prairie as a foreground the distance to the mountain from yelm in a straight line is perhaps fifty miles but by the mule and yellow jacket trail we had to follow it is a hundred miles for notwithstanding a portion of this trail runs in the air where the wasps work hardest it is far from being an airline as commonly understood by night of the third day we reached the soda springs on the right bank of the Nisqually which goes roaring by gray with mud gravel and boulders from the caves of the glaciers of Renear now close at hand the distance from the soda springs to the camp of the clouds is about 10 miles the first part of the way lies up the Nisqually canyon the bottom of which is flat in some places and the walls very high and precipitous like those of the Yosemite Valley the upper part of the canyon is still occupied by one of the Nisqually glaciers from which this branch of the river draws its source issuing from a cave in the gray rock strewn snout about a mile below the glacier we had to ford the river which caused some anxiety for the current is very rapid and carried forward large boulders as well as lighter material while its savage roar is bewildering at this point we left the canyon climbing out of it by steep zigzag up the old lateral moraine of the glacier which was deposited when the present glacier flowed by at this height and is about 800 feet high it is now covered with a superb growth of Piscia Amabolus footnote doubtless the red silver fur now classified as Abbeus Amabolus so also is the corresponding portion of the right lateral from the top of the moraine still ascending we pass for a mile or two through a forest of mixed growth mainly silver fur pattern spruce and mountain pine and then came to the charming park region at an elevation of about 5000 feet above sea level here the vast continuous woods at length begin to give way under the dominion of climate though still at this height retaining their beauty and giving no sign of stress of storm sweeping upward in belts of varying width composed mainly of one species of fur sharp and spirey in form leaving smooth spacious parks with here and there separate groups of trees standing out in the midst of the openings like islands in a lake every one of these parks great and small is a garden filled knee deep with fresh lovely flowers of every hue the most luxuriant and the most extravagantly beautiful of all the alpine gardens I ever beheld in all my mountaintop wanderings we arrived at the cloud camp at noon but no clouds were in sight save a few gauzy ornamental wreaths adrift in the sunshine out of the forest at last there stood the mountain wholly unveiled awful in bulk in majesty filling all the view like a separate newborn world yet with all so fine and so beautiful it might well fire the dullest observer to desperate enthusiasm long we gazed in silent admiration buried in tall daisies and anemones by the side of a snowbank higher we could not go with the animals and find food for them and wood for our own campfires for just beyond this lies the region of ice with only here and there an open spot on the ridges in the midst of the ice with dwarf alpine plants such as saxofragus and drabis which reach far up between the glaciers and low mats of the beautiful brianthus while back of us were the gardens and abundance of everything that heart could wish here we lay all the afternoon considering the lilies and the lines of the mountains with reference to a way to the summit at noon next day we left camp and began our long climb we were in light marching order save one who pluckly determined to carry his camera to the summit at night after a long easy climb over wide and smooth fields of ice we reached a narrow ridge at an elevation of about 10 000 feet above the sea on the divide between the glaciers of the nisqually and the cowlets here we lay as best we could waiting for another day without fire of course as we were now many miles beyond the timber line and without much to cover us after eating a little hard tack each of us leveled a spot to lie on among lava blocks and cinders the night was cold and the wind coming down upon us and stormy surges drove gritty ashes and fragments of pumice about our ears while chilling to the bone very short and shallow was our sleep that night but day dawned at last early rising was easy and there was nothing about breakfast to cause any delay about four o'clock we were off and climbing began in earnest we followed up the ridge on which we had spent the night now along its crest now on either side or on the ice leaning against it until we came to where it becomes massive and precipitous then we were compelled to crawl along a seam or narrow shelf on its face which we traced to its termination in the base of the great ice cap from this point all the climbing was over ice which was here desperately steep but fortunately was at the same time carved into innumerable spikes and pillars which afforded good footholds and we crawled cautiously on warm with ambition and exercise at length after gaining the upper extreme of our guiding ridge we found a good place to rest and prepare ourselves to scale the dangerous upper curves of the dome the surface almost everywhere was bare hard snowless ice extremely slippery and though smooth in general it was interrupted by a network of yawning crevasses outspread like lines of defense against any attempt to win the summit here every one of the party took off his shoes and drove stout steel cocks about half an inch long into them having brought tools along for the purpose and not having made use of them until now so that the points might not get dulled on the rocks here the smooth dangerous ice was reached besides being well shod each carried an Alpenstock and for special difficulties we had a hundred feet of rope and an axe thus prepared we stepped forth afresh slowly groping our way through tangled lines of crevasses crossing on snow bridges here and there after cautiously testing them jumping at narrow places or crawling around the ends of the largest bracing well at every point whether Alpenstocks and setting our spiked shoes squarely down on the dangerous slopes it was nerve trying work most of it but we made good speed nevertheless and by noon all stood together on the utmost summit save one who his strength failing for a time came up later we remained on the summit nearly two hours looking about us at the vast map like views comprehending hundreds of miles of the Cascade Range with their black interminable forests and white volcanic cones in glorious array reaching far into Oregon the sound region also and the great plains of eastern Washington hazy and vague in the distance clouds began to gather soon of all the land only the summits of the mountains st. Helens Adams and hood were left in sight forming islands in the sky we found two well-formed and well-preserved craters on the summit lying close together like two plates on a table with their rims touching the highest point of the mountain is located between the craters where their edges come in contact sulfurous fumes and steam issue from several vents giving out a sickening smell that can be detected at a considerable distance the unwasted condition of these craters and indeed to a great extent of the entire mountain would tend to show that Rainier is still a comparatively young mountain with the exception of the projecting lips of the craters and the top of a subordinate summit a short distance to the northward the mountain is solidly capped with ice all around and it is this ice cap which forms the grand central fountain whence all the 20 glaciers of Rainier flow radiating in every direction the descent was accomplished without disaster though several in the party had narrow escapes one slipped and fell and as he shot past me seemed to be going to certain death so steep was the ice slope no one could move to help him but fortunately keeping his presence of mind he threw himself on his face and digging his Alpenstock into the ice gradually retarded his motion until he came to rest another broke through a slim bridge over a crevasse but his momentum at the time carried him against the lower edge and only his Alpenstock was lost in the abyss thus crippled by the loss of his staff we had to lower him the rest of the way down the dome by means of the rope we carried falling rocks from the upper precipitous part of the ridge were also a source of danger as they came whizzing past in successive volleys but none told on us and when we at length gained the gentle slopes of the lower ice fields we ran and slid at our ease making fast glad time all care and danger passed and arrived at our beloved cloud camp before sundown we were rather weak from want of nourishment and some suffered from sunburn notwithstanding the partial protection of glasses and veils otherwise all were unscathed and well the view we enjoyed from the summit could hardly be surpassed in sublimity and grandeur but one feels far from home so high in the sky so much so that one is inclined to guess that apart from the acquisition of knowledge and the exhilaration of climbing more pleasure is to be found at the foot of the mountains than on their tops doubly happy however is the man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach for the lights that shine there illumine all that lies below end of chapter 20