Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/240

234 The Grand Mound Prairie is interesting from the number and regularity of the mounds, which are two or two and a half feet high, and as close together as potato-hills in a field. Various theories of their origin have been assigned, but the satisfactory one has not yet been suggested.

The entrance to Olympia is through a belt of magnificent trees, four or five miles wide. Just at the head of the sound, where the Des Chutes River falls into it, is a little, lumbering village called Tumwater, with a saw-mill, flouring-mill, and tannery. The falls of the Des Chutes are very pretty; but their beauty will ultimately be hidden by all manner of mills, which will be made to avail themselves of this fine water-power. We observe, concerning names, that the river retains its French name for falls, and the town its Indian name for the same thing. Passing through Tumwater, which is but a suburb of Olympia, we soon find ourselves in the streets of this classically denominated capital.

Olympia depends upon its location for its claim to beauty. Like all towns hewn out of the forest, it has a certain roughness of aspect, caused by stumps, fallen timber, and burnt, unfallen trees. But it has decidedly an air of home-comfort and cheerfulness, with snug residences, good sidewalks, and, to us, the singular charm of long bridges, and spacious wharves. To be suspended over water on a bridge, a long one, was always to us more fascinating than boating. To be at rest over the ever-restless water, and gaze upon its cheerfulness, and dream! In Olympia, we can do this, when the tide is in. When it is out, we can interest ourselves in watching the millions of squirming things the receding flood leaves in the oozy mud. Standing