sition is the more natural, as the mouth of the Columbia is exactly opposite the northern extremity of that Island Empire, and a junk, once disabled, would naturally drift this way. The thing has been known to occur in later years; and that other wrecks, probably Spanish, have happened on this coast, is evidenced by the light-haired and freckle-faced natives of some portions of it farther north, discovered by the earliest traders.
Fort Stevens, on the north shore of the Clatsop Peninsula, is a military post occupying a low, sandy plain, just inside the projection of Point Adams. It is one of the strongest and best-armed on the Pacific coast. Its shape is a nonagon, surrounded by a ditch, thirty feet wide. This ditch is again surrounded by earthworks, intended to protect the wall of the fort, from which rise the earthworks supporting the ordnance. Viewed from the outside, nothing is seen but the gently-inclined banks of earth, smoothly sodded. The officers' quarters, outside the fort, are very pleasant; and, although there is nothing attractive in the location of the fort, or in its surroundings, it is an interesting place in which to spend an hour. The view from the embankment is extensive, commanding the entrance to the river, the fortifications of Cape Hancock, opposite, and the handsome highlands of the north side, as well as of a portion of Young's Bay. The troops quartered here have been temporarily withdrawn to accommodate the officers and men connected with the engineer department of the United States Army, who are at work upon a jetty built by the government to improve the south channel of the Columbia, which extends from Fort Stevens four miles out towards deep water, and will probably be still further extended, the improvement in the channel being manifest. This work was commenced in 1885, before which the channels over the bar were capricious in location and variable in depth, the water on the bar being from nineteen to twenty-one feet, and the channels from one to three in number. The effect of the jetty has been to build up Clatsop spit, and concentrate the waters on the middle sands, which have been removed, leaving from eighteen to twenty-five feet of water in their place. Between three and four square miles of ground in front of Fort Stevens have been built up, where
