Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/262

256 burn near their salt-licks. So dazzled are they by the glare that they stand motionless to be killed. From these facts we may gather that the ideal Indian Hunter is a creation far superior in manly attributes to the real one. But then "his bread-and-butter depends on it," and who can blame him?

Bellingham Bay is sixteen miles long from north to south, and about six miles wide. It is, however, divided by islands, which make the bay proper about six miles in diameter, and of an irregular, circular shape. It is backed by rather high hills, covered with forest, which shelter it from the main-land side; and is protected from the winds which blow up the straits by the numerous islands in front. This bay is the shallowest part of the great archipelago, and has a good bottom for holding, with from seven to twenty fathoms in the central division, while in some other portions of it there are thirty fathoms. Of all the countless safe and convenient harbors on the Sound, Bellingham Bay is esteemed one of the most, if not the most important, by reason of its nearness to the straits, its excellent anchorage, and its avoidance of the strong currents, which, with the ebb and flow of the tide, set through the narrower channels of the lower Sound. The tides, it is observed, contrary to rule, are highest by night through the summer, and highest by day during the winter; except at the full and change of the moon, when they have their extreme height at six in summer, and at six  in winter. The average rise and fall is twelve feet in summer and fourteen in winter.

The handsome blue sandstone used in Portland to build the Custom-house is quarried in a little cove of Bellingham Bay, called Chuckanuts. The rock is