island.
That particular arm of the Sound upon which Olympia is
situated is six miles in length by^from one to one and a half
miles in width, narrowing to a quarter of a mile when opposite
the town. At low-tide the water recedes entirely at this point,
leaving a mud flat all the way from here to Tumwater, a mile
and a half south. The mean rise and fall of the tide is a little
over nine feet; the greatest difference between the highest and
lowest tides is twenty-four feet.
The land adjacent to this inlet is considerably elevated along the shore, and rises yet higher at a little distance back, being level, however, in some places. The same general shape of country surrounds the whole Sound, the land having a general rise back from it for some distance. This, of course, must be the case where a basin exists of the character of this one. That portion of it which lies adjacent to the Sound possesses a porous, gravelly soil, nevertheless, heavily timbered with trees of immense size. This belt of timber is several miles in width. The roads through it and across the small prairies which lie on its outskirts are all that could be desired in the way of natural macadam, and furnish delightful driving. One thing observed regarding these beautiful prairie spots was, that along their edges, where they receive the yearly accession to their soil of the leaf mould of the forest, the orchards and gardens looked very thrifty, and also that wherever there was a piece of bottomland on any small stream the hay-crop was the heaviest we had ever seen.
About ten miles back from the Sound on the east, the country commences to improve, and from there to the foot-hills of the Cascades furnishes a good grazing region, with many fine locations for farms. The foot-hills themselves furnish extensive clay- loam districts suitable for grain-raising, and will, when cleared, become very valuable farming lands. Around the base of the Coast or Olympic Range, on the west, there is also another large body of clay-loam land, and to the south, between the Chehalis and the Columbia,—or, more properly, between the Columbia and the higher ground which separates the Columbia Yalley from the basin of the Sound,—there is a still larger district which may be converted to grain-raising. But the vicinity of the Sound, within a distance of from ten to twenty miles,
