By and by, when everybody has found his place and settled down to stay, the home market of the producer will not be as good as it now is nor the prices so high. But by then he will have placed himself in comfort, and need not worry over market prices.
I am reminded by being at the mouth of the Sauk of a very interesting talk I had with a gentleman at Olympia—Mr. F. W. Brown—before coming here. From him I learned that the scenery on the Sauk, towards its head, is of the wildest description. Jets of lava, poured out in former ages from Mount Baker, thrust themselves up through the main ridge of the Cascades where it is nine thousand feet above the sea. The Sauk River is precipitated over frequent falls and rapids. A park—Suiatl, pronounced Soo-i-at—is surrounded by basaltic needles of great height, and in it is found the red snow seen only in a few localities on the globe. Huge blocks of granite occur in this region, and in one place a pillar of it five thousand feet in height. But the most curious discovery made was of a canon coming down Mount Baker to within half a mile of the Skagit River, formed by hot lava cutting its way through sand and limestone, and turning the sides of the canon thus formed to obsidian. This volcanic glass is blue and green in color, and very brittle. There is a field here for the scientist and the tourist, which is waiting only until railroads make it reasonably easy to approach.
To return to the archipelago. In cruising about among these islands one is irresistibly reminded of Homer. Here might have been enacted the scenes of the Odyssey. There is the same idyllic simplicity, and even the same occupations of the people, who in the San Juan group are often of Canadian or North-of-Europe stock. These islands are indeed preferable to the
"Isles of Greece
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,"
on account of the forestry upon them.
The San Juan group numbers thirty or more islands, large and small, containing together two hundred and fifty square miles. The greatest elevation is two hundred and fifty feet, excluding Mount Dallas, on San Juan, which is ten hundred
