The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1890-01-02
PUGET SOUND.
How Towns and Cities Spring Up From
Big Forests.
The Immense Tree-Covered Wilderness has a
Thousand Beauties-The Rainy Season
Grandeur Of the Mountains Like
TraaR


Grandeur Of the Mountains-Arrow-L Like
Trees.
The boy who thumbed his geography
in the old school house used to as
sociate the northern territories of his
country with eternal snow and ice,
and the long, slender body of water
known as Puget Sound with polar
bears, walrus and ptarmagin. This
opinion is doubtless still held to a
greater or less degree by bearded men
throughout the east The Puget
Sound country is a marvellous and
mysterious land. 1t is land of
romance, of grand, wild scenery and of
innumerable possibilities. While snow
is drifting over the ranges OF Wyom-
ing. the plains Of Nebraska and the
mountains OF Utah, the Japanese trade
winds from the Pacific wave the roses,
asters and chrysanthemums in thous-
ands of gardens along the sound. The
rainy season in this country is the
most disagreeable season of all the
year. The nights and mornings are
chilly, the sky is overcast with sea
clouds and the rain falls in a seeming
ly ceaseless drizzle. The constant fall
OF water and the humid atmosphere
start moss to growing upon the house
tops and upon awnings. Everything is
wet, dank and disagreeable. Even tn g
flowers in the gardens look disconso-
late. The winds from the north then
sweep down the sound, but they are
never so cold as to cause suffering.
The scenery is wild and romantic.
For miles and miles the shores are
studded with pine trees, each as
straight as an arrow and all so COM
pactly clustered as to give the idea of a
green, fluffy carpet stretching away as
Efar as the eye can reach. Flying above
the yeasty wake of the boat are hun
dreds of gulls whose piping cries sound
like the creaking of cordage aboard
ship. The water is covered with fotil-
las of ducks, and now and then string
OF geese flying scarcely above the ships
spar sweeps toward the mainland with
whirr that is music to the ears of a
! sportsman. The water of the sound is
seldom rough. 1t is nearly always
dark, as though it reflected the somber
trees on shore. Sometimes a sunburst
will paint the water half dozen colors
with purple environment and then
shading off to indigo blue and green
until the center of the prismatic circle
is reached, where it will rivet a yellow
disc
After passing through the Straits of
San Juan de Fuca enroute to the
British possessions, the tourist beholds
the snow-capped Olympics in all their
glory. Although these mountains and
their canOns are filled with bear, elk,
deer, and antelope, the Shoshone and
the timber Indians of British Colum-
bia and Alaska never visit them. Cen
turies ago, SO runs the legend of these
red men, one Of their number went
into the Olympics to kill game. He
Travelled many days into the Businesses
OF the mountains until one morning he
found himself in the heart of a great
canon where game was so plentiful
that he had only to drive an arrow
from his bow to bring down a beast.
While he was in the midst of his sport
hideous looking Indian of abnormal
size and possessing voice which,
when used to its greatest capacity,
sent stones and powders rattling down
the sides of the canon, bounded into
the gulch and destroyed and ate the
invader.
The victims bones were afterward
found by friends who went out to find
him and who narrowly escaped sharing
the same fate. Ever since then not an
Indian has ever set foot upon the Olym-
pics, where the great. red cannibal is
supposed to live.
The principal ports of Puget Sound
are Tacoma, Seattle, Port Townsend
and Victoria The exports of timber
from these big towns of the sound
amount to millions of dollars yearly.
No such timber grows elsewhere in the
United States. In an area larger than
the empire of Germany not a crooked
tree can be found, Some of the timber
is shipped to China and Japan, but the
bulk of it goes to the Sandwich Islands
and interior points of this country.
Port Townsend is thrifty village at
the mouth of the straits, with one OF
the grandest harbors in the
world. British war ships COM
ing from the north ON their
way to the sea steam past Port
Townsend. The government has al
ready built fortifcation, and estab-
lished military post at this point, but
the defenses as they stand to-day would
not last long before the fire of modern
ships of battle. Fifty years ago Vic
toria was merely depot for the Hud,
son Bay Fur company, Port Townsend
was clump of Indian tents, and the
sites of Seattle and Tacoma were cov-
cred with fir trees. These towns are
now growing with incredible speed,
and 1t will not be long before this CON-
paratively new country along the
shores of Puget Sound will appear In
the maps of the country with radiating
lines of railroad and big black stars
marking the sites of commercial CEN
ters,