Northern Pacific Railroad Company opened a quarry in the Puyallup Yalley, their works having a capacity of two hundred and seventy-five barrels. The production of lime in Washington in 1880 was sixty-five thousand barrels, worth eighty-four thousand five hundred dollars. Limestone is also abundant in the region of Fort Colville.
Copper is found in connection with gold and silver on both sides of the Cascade Mountains and in the mineral regions of Northeastern Washington. Recent discoveries have been reported as having been made in the Cascades of high-grade copper-ore, and late explorations in the Olympic Mountains reveal the existence of copper in this range. Valuable copper ledges are said to exist eight miles from Hood's Canal in Kitsap County. The Hump tulips River, which flows into Cray's Harbor, is said also to lead to a copper belt of great proportions, the deposit being found in a formation of slate and limestone quite accessible by railroad from the Chehalis Yalley. For the present a movement is on foot to cut a trail from the head of navigation on the Wishkah River to the vicinity of the indicated mines.
Among the specimens of minerals to be seen in the Skagit Yalley is a fine quality of asbestos from a mine opened at an altitude of two thousand feet. The same mineral has been found at Ellensburg, produced in the Sebastian mining district, thirty-eight miles north of that place. It is long-fibred and of superior quality, but has never been mined.
In the Yakima Yalley, lower down, is a mountain of pumice of a fine grain, which, as this volcanic product has also a commercial value, is of importance to the country.
Clays of several qualities, from that used in brick-making to tripoli and kaolin, are abundant in West Washington, although not of equally good quality. While there exist deposits of pottery-clay so uniform in texture as to be immediately convertible into dry-pressed bricks, or with a small hand press moulded into tiles, which on being burned become vitrified and of a deep red, the greater number require thorough treatment by the best processes known to ceramics in order to produce a ware equal to that manufactured in the East. There are good brick-making and fire clays at no great distance from Tacoma,
