, was destroyed by fire a few months ago [28],
with immense loss. The people, however, are in no wise discouraged, and
ere long the loss will be gain, inasmuch as a better class of buildings,
chiefly of brick, are being erected in place of the inflammable wooden
ones, which, with comparatively few exceptions, were built of pitchy
spruce.

With their own scenery so glorious ever on show, one would at first
thought suppose that these happy Puget Sound people would never go
sightseeing from home like less favored mortals. But they do all the
same. Some go boating on the Sound or on the lakes and rivers, or with
their families make excursions at small cost on the steamers. Others
will take the train to the Franklin and Newcastle or Carbon River coal
mines for the sake of the thirty- or forty-mile rides through the woods,
and a look into the black depths of the underworld. Others again take
the steamers for Victoria, Fraser River, or Vancouver, the new ambitious
town at the terminus of the Canadian Railroad, thus getting views of the
outer world in a near foreign country. One of the regular summer resorts
of this region where people go for fishing, hunting, and the healing
of diseases, is the Green River Hot Springs, in the Cascade Mountains,
sixty-one miles east of Tacoma, on the line of the Northern Pacific
Railroad. Green River is a small rocky stream with picturesque banks,
and derives its name from the beautiful pale-green hue of its waters.

Among the most interesting of all the summer rest and pleasure places
is the famous "Hop Ranch" on the upper Snoqualmie River, thirty or forty
miles eastward from Seattle. Here the dense forest opens, allowing fine
free views of the adjacent mountains from a long stretch of ground
which is half meadow, half prairie, level and fertile, and beautifully
diversified with outstanding groves of spruces and alders and rich
flowery fringes of spiraea and wild roses, the river meandering deep and
tranquil through the midst of it. On the portions most easily cleared
some three hundred acres of hop vines have been planted and are now in
full bearing, yielding, it is said, at the rate of about a ton of
hops to the acre. They are a beautiful crop, these vines of the north,
pillars of verdure in regular rows, seven feet apart and eight or ten
feet in height; the long, vigorous shoots sweeping round in fine, wild
freedom, and the light, leafy cones hanging in loose, handsome clusters.

Perhaps