Page:History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana.djvu/116

 deterioration.^'^ The memorial also stated that at the period of the ratification of the treaty the amount of land enclosed by the Puget Sound Company at Cow- litz and Nisqually did not exceed 2,000 acres, yet that the company claimed 227 square miles, or in other words, all the land over which their herds of wild stock occasionally roamed, or to which they were from time to time removed for change of pasture. The Ameri- cans held that the treaty confirmed only the lands en- closed by fences. They had settled upon and improved the unenclosed lands in many instances; yet they had received written notices from the agents of the com- pany commanding them to vacate their homes or be served w^th writs of ejectment and trespass; for w^iich causes congress was petitioned to take steps to ascer- tain the rights of the company, and to purchase them.^^

A joint resolution was also passed instructing the deleQ:ate to cono^ress to use his influence with the ad- ministration to effect a settlement of the disputed boundary between the United States and Great Brit- ain, involving the right to the islands of the archipel- ago of Haro, the matter being afterward known as the San Juan question, and to take some steps to remove the foreign trespassers from the islands — a res- olution suggested, as we already know, by the message of Governor Stevens.^^

2^ This remarkable statement is corroborated by subseqiient writers, who account for the impoverishment of the soil by the substratum of gravel, which, when the sod was disturbed, allowed the rains to wash down, as through a filter, the component parts of the soil. For the same reason, the cattle-ranges, from being continually trampled in wet weather, received no benefit from the dung of the animals, and deteriorated as stated above. On the plains between the Nisqually and Puyallup rivers, where once the grass grew as tall as a man on horseback, the appearance of the country was later one of sterility.

2"^ Wash. Jour. Council, 1854, 183-5. Two other memorials were passed at this session; one asking that the claim of Lafayette Baioh for the expense incurred in rescuing the Georgiana's passengers from Queen Charlotte Island be paid, and one praying congress to confirm the land claim of George Bush, colored, to him and his heirs. Id., 185-8. As to the first, congress had already legislated on that subject. Cong. Globe, xxx. 125.

^^ The other joint resolutions passed related to the establishment of a mail service, by the way of Puget Sound, between Olympia and other points in Washington to San Francisco, New York, and New Orleans; to appropriations for territorial and military roads; to light-houses at Cape Flattery, on Blunt's