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246 of east by south, known as Dwamish, or Elliot Bay. This inlet has a depth of water through the middle, ranging from forty to eighty-eight fathoms, with from ten to twenty fathoms on the anchoring grounds. It receives the waters of the Dwamish River, a stream which has only a length of ten miles, and is the outlet merely of the Black, Green, White, and Cedar rivers; all of them having rich agricultural valleys, making, in conjunction with the commerce of Seattle, King County the richest county of Western Washington.

Three miles immediately east of Seattle is Lake Washington (or Dwamish), connected with the bay by the Dwamish River. This lake lies but eighteen and a half feet above tide-water, making it a matter of trifling expense to open continuous navigation for small steamers into it. On the borders of Lake Washington, about nine miles from Seattle, is a coal-mine of excellent quality, and inexhaustible quantity. A company is working it, who have barges and steam-tugs on the lake, for its transportation in cars to the tramway which conducts to tide-water. A canal is talked of as an outlet to the lake. Should the United States Government conclude to erect a naval station on Lake Washington, as it may, the question of an outlet suitable for large vessels will no longer be in doubt. Probably no better locality for naval purposes could be selected than this; combining, as it does, fresh water of sufficient depth, exhaustless supplies of ship-building timber within easy distance, and extensive deposits of coal and iron—the latter alone being distant some thirty or forty miles, on the line of the projected railroad through the Snoqualmie Pass.

This famous pass is 2,600 feet above the sea, and only sixty-one miles, in an easterly direction, from