Range—the most aerial mountain view in this country of mountains.
Olympia was settled as a donation c*laim in 1846 by Levi L, Smith, who had for a partner Edward Sylvester. Smith died, and Sylvester remained in possession of the claim, which was patented to him. Here he lived and died in peace and plenty, leaving a handsome estate. In spite of the rivalry of other towns, Olympia has always been the choice of the people for the capital, that choice being definitely confirmed by an election held after Washington became a State. That matter being settled, capital and corporations are now looking for investments, and the quiet little town is in danger of blossoming forth into a city. Its present population is a little over eight thousand. Its lumber trade amounts to five hundred thousand dollars annually. It is connected with all the cities on the Sound by steamer lines, and with some of them by railroad, as also with the Columbia River and Portland. It is expected that the Port Townsend an(^ Southern will be extended north to Port Townsend and south to Portland. The Northern Pacific will connect it with Tacoma and Cray’s Harbor, with which latter place it is already in communication by steamer and rail. The air is full of rumors of railroad projects by old and new companies, but it is with facts accomplished that I prefer to deal.
West Washington, unlike West Oregon, has no chief river, with its numerous tributaries, draining a great valley; but it has, nevertheless, its central body of water, into which flow numerous small rivers, draining the Puget Sound Basin, which is bounded, like the Wallamet Yalley, by the Cascade and Coast Ranges on the east and west, and by their intermingling spurs on the south. These rivers, unlike those of Oregon, are all affected by the ebb and flow of the tides, and have their lowest bottom-lands overflowed. The Sound itself is not one simple great inlet of the sea, but is an indescribably tortuous body of water which is not even a sound, being too deep for soundings in some of its narrowest parts. So eccentric are its meander- ings that the whole county of Kitsap is inclosed so nearly in the embraces of its several long arms as very narrowly to escape being an
