in Washington, the seat of government of Wahkiakum County, and the seat also of a fish-canning establishment. It is perched on a high bluff, and has a small population.
The mountains approach the river again on both sides at the Narrows, and opposite to the Oak Point of Captain Winship is the modern Oak Point, which seems to have borrowed the name, and shifted it to the Washington side. The name is pretty and distinctive, and ought never to be changed, as it marks the western boundary of the oak-tree in Oregon and Washington. Between this and the sea not an oak-tree grows. The only business at or about Oak Point is that of the fisheries already mentioned, and a lumbering establishment erected in 1848-49. It is run by water-power, and capable of manufacturing four million feet annually.
About ten miles above Oak Point we come to the mouth of the Cowlitz River. Just below it is a high, conical hill, known as Mount Coffin. This eminence, together with Coffin Rock, seven miles above, on the Oregon side, formed the burial-places of the Indians of this vicinity before the settlement of the country by whites. Here the dead were deposited in canoes, well wrapped up in mats or blankets, with their most valuable property beside them, and their domestic utensils hung upon the posts which supported their unique coffins. Wilkes relates in his journal how his men accidentally set fire to the underbrush on Mount Coffin, causing a number of the canoes to be consumed, to the grief and horror of the Indians, who would have avenged the insult had they not been convinced of its accidental occurrence.
The Cowlitz is a small river, though navigable for twenty miles when the water is high enough, and about half that distance at all times. It rises in Mount St. Helen, and runs westwardly for some distance, when it turns abruptly to the south. The valley of the Cowlitz is small, being not more than twenty miles long and four or five wide. It is heavily timbered, except for a few miles above its mouth, where the rich alluvial bottomlands are cleared and cultivated. No finer soil could possibly exist than this in the Cowlitz Valley. In 1868 the town of Monticello, four miles from the Columbia, was all swept away in a flood. It has been replaced by a fresher edition of its
