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Show • Washington Territory. vV ASHINGTON TERRITORY. The Territory of Washington occupies all that region of country situated between the Columbia river, and the forty-ninth degree of North Latitude, and the fortieth degree of West Longitude, and the Pacific Ocean. This is the most northerly and westerly portion of our United States: being bounded on the north by British Columbia and Vancouver Island, and on the west by the surging waves of the Pacific. Its physical geography is very marked, and intensly interesting, as wen to the lover of nature, in her wild, grand beauty, for her beauty's sake, as to him who sees only beauty where business prospects glitter. Within the Territorial limits is embraced an area of seventy thousand square miles. The distinctive features are the mountain ranges and inland seas. CHAPTER II. MOUNTAIN RANGES. Beginning at a point some fifty miles cast of the ocean, and a few miles north of the Columbia river, the coast range of mountains rises to an altitude of nearly seven thousand feet, and continues in an unbroken chain to the Strait of SanJuan de Fuca, a distance of more than a hundred miles, maintaining nearly the same elevation, and bearing in a northerly direction, the white peaks ever presenting a view, or background at once interesting and grand. I-Iere the first morning rays of the earth's illuminator touch, and linger, tinging with golden beauty the varying hillsides, and mirroring to the eye a thousand shades of highly wrought colors. These mountains are generally known as the Coast ran~e, but recently they are being styled by the more pleasant name, Olympic mountains . |