ing there.

Fire, then, is the great governing agent in forest distribution and to
a great extent also in the conditions of forest growth. Where fertile
lands are very wet one half the year and very dry the other, there can
be no forests at all. Where the ground is damp, with drouth occurring
only at intervals of centuries, fine forests may be found, other
conditions being favorable. But it is only where fires never run that
truly ancient forests of pitchy coniferous trees may exist. When the
Washington forests are seen from the deck of a ship out in the middle of
the sound, or even from the top of some high, commanding mountain,
the woods seem everywhere perfectly solid. And so in fact they are in
general found to be. The largest openings are those of the lakes and
prairies, the smaller of beaver meadows, bogs, and the rivers; none of
them large enough to make a distinct mark in comprehensive views.

Of the lakes there are said to be some thirty in King's County alone;
the largest, Lake Washington, being twenty-six miles long and four miles
wide. Another, which enjoys the duckish name of Lake Squak, is about
ten miles long. Both are pure and beautiful, lying imbedded in the green
wilderness. The rivers are numerous and are but little affected by the
weather, flowing with deep, steady currents the year round. They are
short, however, none of them drawing their sources from beyond the
Cascade Range. Some are navigable for small steamers on their lower
courses, but the openings they make in the woods are very narrow, the
tall trees on their banks leaning over in some places, making fine shady
tunnels.

The largest of the prairies that I have seen lies to the south of Tacoma
on the line of the Portland and Tacoma Railroad. The ground is dry and
gravelly, a deposit of water-washed cobbles and pebbles derived from
moraines--conditions which readily explain the absence of trees here and
on other prairies adjacent to Yelm. Berries grow in lavish abundance,
enough for man and beast with thousands of tons to spare. The woods are
full of them, especially about the borders of the waters and meadows
where the sunshine may enter. Nowhere in the north does Nature set a
more bountiful table. There are huckleberries of many species, red,
blue, and black, some of them growing close to the ground, others on
bushes eight to ten feet high; also salal berries, growing on a low,
weak-stemmed bush, a species of gaultheria, seldom more than