advantages enjoyed by its neighbors, and just beyond is Meeker, the junction of the Seattle branch. Lime-Kiln is what its name implies, and then w T e have Orting,—" the Queen of the Puyallup Valley,"—" an agricultural, business, and railroad centre." It is quite that, unless appearances deceive us. I have already spoken of the railroad being built by the St. Paul and Tacoma Lumber Company south from Orting. A few miles beyond are roads branching off from the mainline of the Northern Pacific to Carbondale and Wilkeson. All these roads bring business to Orting, and so do the logging-camps and the farms round about. It has, besides, a saw-mill, chair-factory, and railroad shops, and, in short, seems likely to take care of its future, although but an infant in years.
At the head of the Valley is Wilkeson, where the first coalmines of the Northern Pacific were opened. I have spoken in a general manner of the coal deposits of Washington, but wfill quote a paragraph or two from W. H. Ruffner, LL.D., on the Puyallup Mines: 11 There are, however, only three collieries at work in this group. One is called the Carbonado Mines, which are on Carbon River. Three miles north, a little east, are the famous Wilkeson Mines; and two miles northwest of Wilkeson are the South Prairie Mines, on South Prairie Creek.
"There are some differences in the coal at the three mines. That at South Prairie was sold chiefly for making gas. The best of the Wilkeson coal is made into coke, and is in demand beyond the supply. The price is seven dollars a ton at the ovens. The entire product of the Carbonado Mines is said to go to the Central Pacific Railway."
Ruffner's opinion of this group of mines is rather unfavorable, on the whole. "To all appearance the amount of coal here is not large, and the beds are sadly faulted, and pitch deep into the ground." It is comforting to know that, so large an area as the whole eastern shore of the Sound and the Chehalis Valley being underlaid w T ith coal, there will be some left when this group fails.
Wilkeson is a pretty nook at the very extremity of the Valley, where I fared well and had a pleasant chat with the superintendent of the mine, after which I returned to Puyallup to take the train for Seattle.
