Page:Atlantis Arisen.djvu/288



2

former of several hundred miles, and over the latter of about eighty. It is claimed here that vessels loading or discharging in Gray's Harbor save seven hundred miles in going and returning to Puget Sound ports, from eight to ten days of time, and from six hundred dollars to one thousand dollars in towage,— only ten miles of towing being required to take a ship out of the harbor,—and that the} 7 decrease their rates of insurance by avoiding the stormy coast of Cape Flattery, at the entrance to the Strait of Fuca.

The arguments in favor of Gray's Harbor reach further, and say that wheat from East Washington once loaded onto cars could more cheaply roll right on to Gray's Harbor over the Northern Pacific or Hunt's road, and be transferred to vessels there, than to sail the additional distance from Tacoma out through the Straits. Certainly the dikes projected in front of the city of Gray's Harbor will afford admirable sites for grainelevators, to be used in loading ships. With some comparatively cheap improvement upon the bar it is contended that this port is equal, if not greatly superior in its facilities for commerce, to any on the Northwest coast. And it seems as if nature should have provided such an outlet as this is claimed to be for the wealth within easy reach of it.

The timber which is tributary to the Chehalis Valley is not only that which covers so large an area in the valley proper, and its tributary valleys, which is estimated at ninety billions of feet, but there is an equal amount on the south and west of the Olympic Mountains which can only be brought out in this direction, and which is the largest and best timber in the State, unsurveyed and untouched by the axe of the logger. Great as are the well-known timber resources of Washington, it appears that more than a third of the whole must find its outlet at Gray's Harbor. A glance at the map shows a stream every few miles falling into Gray's Harbor or the Chehalis, which seem to have been designed for "driving" logs out of this immense forest. Many of these are navigable for considerable distances where not choked up with a "jam" of fallen timber, some of them having a depth of forty feet and over.

The largest of the streams emptying into tide-water are the Humptulips, Hoquiam, Wishkah, and Wynooche, all on t