say that it is the intention of the powers just referred to, not only to bring the Yakima and Pacific Coast Railroad here* but also to extend their Gray's Harbor line down to the same place. So the strife for ascendency between the Gray's Harbor and Shoal water Bay towns is not without foundation in reason.
Within a distance of fifty miles on the coast are three competing points, Astoria, and the leading city, whichever that may prove to be, on each of the two harbors north of the Columbia. It must be a surprise to the merchants in the interior, who have always controlled the commerce of these two States, to discover at this late day that trade-centres are not permanent, but locate themselves according to natural advantages which are fixed, other things being equal. The whole of West Washington is so rich in resources that it now depends upon the capacity of any considerable portion of it to sustain a more dense population to give superior power to a particular city, although for a time it may serve as a distributing point to a wide area of only partially occupied territory.
Within a short distance of Shoalwater Bay is a range of hills in which rises the Nasel River, a wild stream which in twenty miles accomplishes a good deal of that kind of motion which the water does that "comes down at Ladore." It is a favorite region with hunters from the seaside resorts south of the bay, the game being the same as that found in the Olympics, and more easily reached.
One of the attractions of Shoalwater Bay is the life-saving station on North Cove. The crew is composed of a captain and six men, who not only thoroughly understand their work, but are kept in training by drill. There is no hour of the day or night when the guard is broken, each man being on watch four hours of the twenty-four. When a wreck is discovered the patrol burns a signal which by percussion emits a red light that is visible a long distance, and then gives his warning to the crew in the boat-house by firing a small cannon kept ready at the light-house on the point.
At the sound of the cannon the men spring to their places, and the captain, trumpet in hand, takes command. Only last December the "Grace Roberts," a large bark from San Francisco, was driven ashore fifteen miles south of the station, one
