it, and when a thousand years from now orators shall seek to embellish their speech, it will not be by reference to Greece, but to these far western isles, the new Atlantis discovered by a Greek navigator.
Like the Greeks, these islanders have fish in plenty, and fish will always be counted among their resources. Twenty tons of halibut have been taken in one day by a single boat. Game is still plentiful in the bills, while the bays and sloughs swarm with ducks, geese, and brant. The farm productions sent to market, besides fruit, are chiefly mutton, hay, oats, cheese, and butter.
Talking about fish and fowl reminds me of the comical habits of that absurd bird the crow, whose numbers on the beach anywhere from the Columbia to the British boundary are immense. They swarm on these island beaches when the tide is out, and fish for clams. Seizing their game, they mount high in the air and drop the bivalve upon the rocks to break the shell, when they proceed to make a meal otf the contents. When pigs running wild root for clams, the crows roost on their backs until a clam is turned up, and, just as the shell is cracked by the pig, will dart down, seize the mollusk, and retire to devour it.
The importance of this archipelago to the State of Washington is suggested by the above observations. Lying at the head of the Strait of Fuca, the only maritime entrance to the great inland sea improperly called a sound, it is upon a naval depot in this vicinity that the defence of the interior depends. The United States, having weakly yielded the island of Vancouver to the British government, must maintain offensive and defensive establishments at least equal to those of Great Britain, and sufficient to guard the Sound coasts against intrusion by any foreign power.
It is interesting to know that the man who first gave signs of comprehending the significance of the archipelago at the head of the Fuca Strait was by birth a British subject, by education an American, and by name Amos Bowman. He had been a reporter for the New York Tribune during the civil war, had studied medicine and engineering, had assisted in surveying the boundary between California and Nevada, and been reporter for
