cranberry marshes; in all respects resembling the plains south of the Columbia River. Both have evidently been formed by the sand brought down by the Columbia, and other rivers, and moved by wave and wind into its present position.
The entrance to Gray's Harbor is about three-fourths of a mile in width, with twenty-one feet on the bar at mean low-water, and thirty-one feet at mean high-water. It is considered a good and safe harbor. That which makes the importance of Gray's Harbor, is the fact that it lies only about sixty miles directly west of the head of the Sound; and that it can easily be brought into connection with the Northern Pacific Railroad by means of the Chehalis River, which empties into it. This river, as perhaps the reader will remember, we crossed twice in going from the Columbia to the Sound. At the first crossing is the little village of Claquato, in the valley of the Chehalis, near the junction of the Newaukum with the latter river. Either at this point, or a few miles to the east, in the Newaukum Valley, there must be a station on the Northern Pacific Railroad, the distance from which to Olympia is thirty-seven miles. The Chehalis River being navigable for light-draught steamers for a distance of sixty miles, in a meandering course, leaves but a short distance to be overcome in reaching the railroad, which would give communication with either the Sound or the Columbia River. It was this fact which induced a company to buy up a large tract of land on Gray's Harbor only a few months ago; and the probabilities are that they will make it one of the most important harbors on the whole coast.
Tide-water extends twenty miles up the Chehalis River, and also into some of its tributaries, making
