WASHINGTON
560
WASHINGTON
The total number of students in the university is
1445. For female education, the Academy of the
Visitation, Georgetown, and Trinity College, Brook-
land, are institutions of high standing. A summer
school, under the auspices of the CathoUc University,
was successfully inaugurated in 1911, for the mem-
bers of Catholic teaching orders of women. Besides
these are: Gonzaga College, directed by the Jesuits;
St. John's College, by the Christian Brothers; the
Visitation Academy of Washington; the Immaculata
Academy of the Sisters of Providence; academies and
high scliools, directed by the Sisters of the Holy
Cross, Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Notre-Dame,
Sisters of the Third Order of St. Dominic, and the
Oblate Sisters of Providence (for coloured children).
Over 4000 pupils attend the parochial schools.
The eleemosynary and benefit institutions include St. Ann's Infant Asylum, an orphan asylum forUttle boys, another for girls, St. Rose's Technical School, and Providence Hospital (aU in care of the Sisters of Charity). The Sisters of Mercy conduct a home for self-supporting girls. The houses of the Good Shep- herd, the I/ittle Sisters of the Poor, and the Bon Secours pro\ade for their special objects of care and charity. Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul exist in nearly all parishes. The Christ Cluld Society, having for its object to provide for all the needs of child life among the destitute, has its headquarters in Washington, with branches in several other cities; the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions has its office here; the Apostolic Mission House was established in 1902 near the CathoUc University. It is difficult to determine the exact number of Catholics in Wash- ington, but it has been estimated to be 30 per cent of the entire population.
Catholic Directory (1912) ; U. S. Census 1910; Records of Colum- bia Hist. Soc.; Catalogue Georgetou^n University (1912); Forbes- Lindsay, Washington, the City and the Seat of Government (Phil- adelphia, 1908) : DoDD, Government of the District of Columbia (Washington, 1909) ; Clark, Greenleaf and Law in the Federal City (Washington, 1901) ; Welleh, The National Capital, a Per- petual Memorial to the Generositu of American Catholics in The Morning Star (New Orleans, 29 April, 1911).
E. I. Devitt.
Washington, St-\te of, one of the Pacific coast states, popularly known as the "Evergreen State", the sixteenth in size among the states of the Union and the twenty-ninth in the order of admission. It was named in honour of the first president of the United States, whose likeness adorns the state seal. Its total area contains 69,127 square miles.
BocxD.'iRiES. — The old territory of Washington was originally formed with the consent of the U. S. Con- gress, 2 March,
»Xi| /fl
1853, from the Ter-
ritory of Oregon.
It contained then
"all that part
lying south of the
ioth degree of
north latitude and
north of the middle
of the main chan-
nel of the Colum-
bia river from its
^, mouth to where the
^^ 4(jth degree crosses
' said river near
Fort Walla Walla thence with said 46th degree to the summit of the Rocky Mountains." Since the formation of the Territory (now State) of Idaho in 1863 Washington lies between 45° 32' and 49° northern latitude and 117° and 124° western longitude. Its limits according to article XXIV of the state constitution, adopted at Olympia, 22 Aug., 1SS9, are as follows: "Beginning at a point in the Pacific
Seal of Washinoton
Ocean one marine league due west of and opposite
the middle of the mouth of the north ship channel of
the Columbia river, thence running easterly up the
middle channel of said river, and where it is divided
by islands up the middle of the widest channel
thereof to where the 46th parallel of north latitude
crosses said river near the mouth of the WaUa WaUa
river, thence east on said 46th parallel of latitude
to the middle of the main channel of the Shoshone or
Snake river; thence down the middle of the main
channel of the Snake river to a point opposite the
mouth of the Kookooskia or Clear Water river, thence
due north to the 49th parallel of north latitude,
thence west along .said 49th parallel to the middle of
the channel which separates Vancouver Island from
the continent, thence following the boundary line
between the United States and the British possessions
through the channel which separates Vancouver
Island from the continent to a point in the Pacific
Ocean equidistant between Bonilla Point on Van-
couver Island and Tatoosh Islands, thence running
in a southerly course and parallel with the coast line,
keeping one marine league off shore, to the place of
beginning". Thus, the State of Oregon hes to the
south of Washington, Idaho to the east, British
Columbia and Vancouver Island on the north, and the
Pacific Ocean on the west.
Physical Features, Climate, etc. — The Cascade and the Coast Ranges are the principal surface fea- tures. The former traverses the state from north to south, and divides it into two unequal parts com- monly known as western and eastern \\'ashington. These mountainous portions range from oOOO to 14, .500 feet in height. The triangular peninsula which forms the extreme north-western part of the state and contains the Olympic Mountains and Coast Range is produced by Puget Sound, a part of the Pacific, occupying an area of more than 2000 square miles. The Olympic peninsula, though close to the most inhabited portion of the state, has on account of its native wildness been but little explored and is but sparsely inhabited. Between the Olympics and the Cascades lies the fertile Puget Sound Basin. Thj principal rivers of western Washington are the Skagit, Snohomish, Duwamish, Chehalis, and Willapa, which flow to the ocean, and the Cowhtz, a tributary of the Columbia. The most important lake in western Washington is Lake Washington, about 16 miles long'and 3 miles wide. Western Washington, at the foot of abrupt and heavily timbered slopes of the Cascades, is in area about one-half of eastern Washington, whose plains he more than 1000 feet higher. The northern and southern part of this section of the state are known as the Okanogan Highlands and the Columbia Plains. During the last ten years much government and private money has been expended to redeem tliis vast waste for agricultural purposes by utilizing the watercourses of this section for irrigation, and the success has been marvellous. The best orchards of Washington and superior alfalfa farms mark the oases so obtained. The main watercourse of eastern Washington is the Columbia, which receives on its long and circuitous path of nearly 1400 miles to the ocean a luimber of tributaries such !is the Pend'Oreille or Clark, Ok- anogan, Spokane, Yakima, and Snake rivers. The northern part of eastern Washington with its ex- tr(-mely picturesque wilderness may be termed the Switzerland of Washington. Its most attractive spot is Lake Chelan, which is more than three miles wide and about seventy miles long and which pene- trates deep into the Ca.^cade Mountains, whose bases rise here and there abruptly from its waters.
Climatically there is scarcely a state in the l^nion more favoured than W:isliington, owing to the proximity of the Pacific Ocean and the protection afforded by the mountain ranges. The prevailing
