purposes; being the outlet of a lake situated two hundred feet higher, and only four miles distant. Springs also abound in the same neighborhood, some of them large enough to run the machinery of a mill. Little more than a mile to the east is old Fort Steilacoom, now abandoned. In the building once used as officers' quarters, the insane of the Territory are now confined, having been recently removed from Monticello. If a healthful location and pleasant surroundings can have any effect to "medicine a mind diseased," the location of the Asylum for the Insane is admirably chosen in this instance. The Penitentiary is also located at Steilacoom, but not on the main-land, a small island being devoted to this institution.
Steilacoom has only three hundred inhabitants, and is possessed of three churches and two school-houses. A boarding-school for girls is kept by the Sisters of Charity. The Masons, also, have a hall; the other public buildings being a Court-house and Jail—the latter built of brick, and very substantial. From Steilacoom east, via the Nachess Pass, to Wallula, on the Columbia River, is 225 miles. The altitude of this pass is 3,467 feet; but was opened and used as an emigrant road in 1853, and had $20,000 expended on it by the Government, in 1854. It is now, however, so blocked up by fallen timber as to be impassable for wagons. A recent discovery of valuable iron-ore on the Puyallup River, about fifteen miles from Steilacoom, has given additional importance to this place as a manufacturing point. Opposite to Steilacoom, on a small inlet, is an establishment for manufacturing oil from the dog-fish, before spoken of. This establishment is owned by Col. Pardee, an enterprising gentleman from New Haven, Ct.
