The San Francisco call., 1896-03-09

iooc car uoue tnrlylng DuSlueSS, uoNAoS
run day and night. New canneries are
starting up at several points:on the Sound
and the industry is decidedly on the in
crease. The fishing industry includes seal
catcning, salmon canning, shipping fresh
nsh to the East and fish drying. Halbut
are extensively handled; also herring, coo
and other varieties. Oysters, clans, crabs
ana shrlmps abound in the sound and are
already great feature of the fishing trace
ana one destined to increase indefinitely
IN the future. Lobsters have been planted
OF iate years and are expected to muitlply
ana thrive. There is no reason to suppose
that the Pacific fisheries will not in time
equal those of the Atlantic and when they
do Seattle will become the great fishing
center of the coast
The city has railroad facilities which are
nnequaled on the Pacific Coast, having
direct comm unication with the East by
four great transcontinental lines. the
Northern Pacific, the Great Northern,
Canadian Pacific and Union Pacific, all OF
Wnlcn terminate at Seattle. IL also mas
600 miles OF local lines. !.
1t Is the center of the water trafflc OF
Puget Sound. Freight, touring and pas
senger steamers lnnnmerable make oeat,
tie their headquarters. 1t has several
lines of steamers and sailing vessels ply
ing between Seattle, San Francisco and
the California coast, three to Alaska, one
TO South America, several to British CO.
lumbia, and local lines reaching. every
nook and corner of the 1900 miles OF shore
OF Puget Sound.
Its water and land facilities for handling
oil KINDS OF business have made Seattle the
principal wholesale and jobblng point IN
the State, and have given her all OF the
following named institutions, as wei. as
the travel and trade incident thereto, VIZ.
The State University, Circuit and District
Courts, United States Land Office, Custom
house, Local Inspectors Huls and Boilers,
Weather Bureau and Signal Service,
Geological Survey, United States Engin-
neers' Office. etc.
The city is in the midst OF the greatest
lumber. coal. iron and mineral belts in the
world. The native wealth of this lmmedl-
ate section is too great for the human
mind to comprehend. All sorts OF indus
tries are found there, such as sash and
door factories, furniture factories, iron
works, car shops, fouring-mills, boiler
shops, ship and boat building, marine
ways, foundries, elevators, breweries, ware
houses, etc.
The city is the county seat of King
County, the greatest hop producing county
in the West. 1t is the principal produce
market OF the State, and ships great guam
titles to California, Hawaiian Islands,
China, Japan, South America, Africa and
England. 1t is also the principal supply
point for logging camps, mills, etc:
Seattle Is substantial and growing city,
the metropolis of the Northwest, and her
trade and business are in exact ratio to
her population. The city is situated on the
east shore of Puget Sound, on strip of
hlly land which lies between Elliott or
Seattle Bay and Lake Washington. Lake
Washington is fine, fresh-water lake of
great depth, about twenty-five miles long,
Sole Is hn,1f yrtxy
nine square miles, lying parallel to the
Sound about two miles distant.
Seattle lacks but two things to round up
her commercial facilities: The one is level
land on which to build up her manu-
factories and to transact her other heavy
business adjacent to deep-water wharfage,
and the other is a fresh-water harbor
where vessels and wharves would be
protected from the ravages of the teredo.
harbor is very limited and lies at the
base of the bluff on which the residence
part of the city is built. So narrow is this
strip that the business part of the city has
extended out over the water upon eX-
pensive wharves which are annually or
biennially destroyed by the teredo. The
city is thus hampered. Her business must
be done on this mere strip or on wharves
or raised to the hills, which is impractical
BILE. More room on level ground is posi-
tive necessity.
The remedy is at hand. There extends
from the city, south, a large tract OF level
land, called tide fats, overhowed with
each coming in of the tide II this area of
tide fats had been dry land. lying as it
does contiguous to the heart of the city,
the business center of Seattle would now
be on this land.
This land is now being filed in and re-
claimed, and at the same time provision
is being made for one of the finest harbors
in the world. 1t will be pierced with two
main ship waterways, each 1000 feet wide,
connected with the Duwamish River by
These level lands will be connected with
Lake Washington by ship canal through
the highlands two miles long, and this
canal will be connected with the main
waterways by a canal waterway one mile
long.
The material dredged and dug from these
waterways and canals is being used to fill
in the tide lands. Seawalls and retaining
walls of the most substantial character
by the State to the Seattle and Lake
Washington Waterway Company and by
that company to the Bowers Dredging
Company OF Chicago, and they are now
moving 250,000 cubic yards of earth
monthly. The estimated cost of the COM
plete work is from six to seven million
dollars. This reclaimed land must neces-
sariIy become very valuable. The great
and rapidly growing business of this me-
tropolis of the Northwest must go there, be-
cause there is no other place for it to go.
The total area to be filled in is 1926 acres.
The length of the hill section of the canal
is 10, ,225 feet and the deepest cut 308 feet.
The time allowed by the State for the com.
pletion of the work is six years. The
present improvers on the districts now
being filled number among them some
of the best known and largest con-
Germs of Seattle. The values of the lands
as set by the Board Of Tide Lands APP
praisers vary from $1,000 per acre to $1oO
per acre. The higher priced lands are
those directly adjoining the present busi-
ness portion of the city, ard the lower
priced those at the extreme end of the fill.
The district at present being filed COM
prises about forty-six and half acres OF
the most valuable tide lands, and the fill
ing has been in progress since August l,
1895, although certain preliminary work,
such as plle-driving, ETC., was started May
NOr L. 49, has, rs