Natural Setting
WASHINGTON, the Evergreen State, occupies the northwest corner of the United States, with the Pacific Ocean on the west, Canada on the north, Idaho on the east, and Oregon on the south. Although its northwest corner is chewed out by the sea, and its southern border is determined by the meanderings of the Columbia River from the point where it swings westward, the State is roughly rectangular, measuring 300 miles east to west and 240 miles north to south. With a water area of 1,721 square miles and a land area of 66,836 square miles, Washington is larger than all New England, but its population is only 1,736,191 or 25.0 persons to the square mile.
The State, consisting of seven distinct physiographic areas the Olympic Mountains, Willapa Hills, Puget Sound Basin, Cascade Mountains, Okanogan Highlands, Columbia Basin, and Blue Mountains represent: virtually every topographic variation known in the United States.
The Olympic Mountains, a part of the coastal range, lie between Puget Sound, Juan de Fuca Strait, and the Pacific Ocean, and are separated from the Willapa Hills by the valley of the Chehalis River. The region presents a labyrinth of peaks - Mount Olympus (8,150 alt.). Mount Fitzhenry (8,008 alt.), and Mount Constance (7,717 alt.) outstanding and serrated ridges, broken and eroded. Alpine valleys lakes, and torrential rivers are numerous.
South of the Olympic Mountains are the Willapa Hills, a region of sedimentary and igneous rocks of the Tertiary period. Relatively low, rarely approaching 3,000 feet in elevation, this area receives less rainfall than the northern region, yet vegetation is rank, and there are many streams draining into the Columbia River and Willapa Harbor. Only along the bank of the Columbia River do the hills become abrupt.
The Puget Sound Basin lies between the Olympic and Cascade Mountains in the form of a broad trough, extending from Juan de Fuca Strait, which connects Puget Sound with the Pacific, half way to the Columbia River. It averages 100 feet in elevation in its central portion, while its
