The Greatest Works of Charles Carleton Coffin. Charles Carleton Coffin
Читать онлайн книгу.
to San Francisco for the use of the Pacific mail-steamers.
Not only in Washington, but up the coast of British Columbia, the coal-deposits crop out in numerous places.
An explorer on Simpson River, which next to the Fraser is the largest in British Columbia, thus writes to Governor Douglas: "I saw seams of coal to-day fifteen feet thick, better than any mined at Vancouver" (Parliamentary Blue-Book).
Coal in Montana, in Idaho, in Washington, on Vancouver, in British Columbia; coal on the Missouri, the Yellowstone, the Columbia, the Fraser; coal on Simpson River, coal in Alaska! Measureless forests all over the Pacific slope! Timber enough for all the world, masts and spars sufficient for the mercantile marine of every nation! Great rivers, thousands of waterfalls, unequalled facilities for manufacturing! An agricultural region unsurpassed for fertility! Exhaustless mineral wealth! Fisheries equalling those of Newfoundland, — salmon in every stream, cod and herring abounding along the coast! Nothing wanting for a varied industry.
Unfold the map of North America and look at its western coast. From Panama northward there is no harbor that can ever be available to the commerce of the Pacific till we reach the Bay of San Francisco. From thence northward to the Columbia the waves of the sea break against rugged mountains. The Columbia pours its waters through the Coast Range, but a bar at its mouth has practically closed it to commerce. Not till we reach Puget Sound do we find a good harbor. North of that magnificent gateway are numberless bays and inlets. Like the coast of Maine, there is a harbor every five or ten miles, where ships may ride in safety, sheltered from storms, and open at all seasons of the year. There never will be any icebound ships on the coast of British Columbia, for the warm breath of the tropics is felt there throughout the year.
While the map is unfolded, look at Puget Sound, and think of its connection with Japan and China. Latitude and longitude are to be taken into account when we make long journeys. Liverpool is between the 53d and 54th parallels, or about two hundred and sixty miles farther north than Puget Sound, where a degree of longitude is only thirty-five miles in length. Puget Sound is on the 49th parallel, where the degrees are thirty-eight and a half miles in length. San Francisco is near the 37th parallel, where the degrees are nearly forty-nine miles in length. Liverpool is three degrees west of Greenwich, from which longitude is reckoned. The 122d meridian passes through Puget Sound and also through the Bay of San Francisco. It follows from all this that the distance from Liverpool in straight lines to these two magnificent gateways of the Pacific, in geographical miles, is as follows: —
| Liverpool | to | San Francisco | 4,879 | miles. |
| " | " | Puget Sound | 4,487 | " |
| — — | ||||
| Difference, | 392 | " |
Looking across the Pacific we see that Yokohama is on the 35th parallel, where a degree of longitude is forty-nine miles in length. Reckoning the distance across the Pacific between Yokohama and the western gateways of the continent, we have this comparison: —
| San Francisco | to | Yokohama | 4,856 | miles. |
| Puget Sound | " | " | 4,294 | " |
| — — | ||||
| Difference, | 562 | " |
Adding these differences together, we see that longitude alone makes a total of nine hundred and fifty-four miles in favor of Puget Sound between Liverpool and Yokohama. When the Northern Pacific Railroad is completed, Chicago will be fully six hundred miles nearer Asia by Puget Sound than by San Francisco.
Vessels sailing from Japan to San Francisco follow the Kuro-Siwo, the heated river, which of itself bears them towards Puget Sound at the rate of eighty miles a day. They follow it into northern latitudes till within three or four hundred miles of the coast of British Columbia, then shape their course southward past Puget Sound to the Golden Gate.
In navigation, then, Asia is nearly, if not quite, one thousand miles nearer the ports of Puget Sound than San Francisco. The time will come when not only Puget Sound, but every bay and inlet of the northwest coast, will be whitened with sails of vessels bringing the products of the Orient, not only for those who dwell upon the Pacific slope, but for the mighty multitude of the Empire of the Northwest, of the Mississippi Valley, and the Atlantic States.
From those land-locked harbors steamships shall depart for other climes, freighted with the products of this region, spun and woven, hammered and smelted, sawed and planed, by the millions of industrious workers who are to improve the unparalleled capabilities of this vast domain.
There is not on the face of the globe a country so richly endowed as this of the Northwest. Here we find every element necessary for the development of a varied industry, — agricultural, mining, manufacturing, mercantile, and commercial, — all this with a climate like that of southern France, or central and northern Europe.
"The climate," says Mr. Roberts, "of this favored region is very remarkable, and will always remain an attractive feature; which must, therefore, aid greatly in the speedy settlement of this portion of the Pacific coast. Even in the coldest winters there is practically no obstruction to navigation from ice; vessels can enter and depart at all times; and the winters are so mild that summer flowers which in the latitude of Philadelphia, on the Atlantic coast, we are obliged to place in the hot-house, are left out in the open garden without being injured. The cause of this mildness is usually, and I think correctly, ascribed to the warm-water equatorial current, which, impinging against the Pacific coast, north of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, passes along nearly parallel with the shore, diffusing its genial warmth over the land far into the interior. Of the fact there is no doubt, whatever may be the cause" (Report, p. 14).
The climate of eastern Washington, amid the mountains, corresponds with that of Pennsylvania; but upon the sea-coast and along the waters of Puget Sound roses blossom in the open air throughout the year, and the residents gather green peas and strawberries in March and April.
In a former view we looked at the territory belonging to Great Britain lying east of the Rocky Mountains, we saw its capabilities for settlement; but far different in its physical features is British Columbia from the Saskatchawan country. It is a land of mountains, plains, valleys, and forests, threaded by rivers, and indented by bays and inlets. The main branch of the Columbia rises in the British Possessions, between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains. There is a great amphitheatre between those two ranges, having an area of forty-five thousand square miles. We hardly comprehend, even with a map spread out before us, that there is an area larger than Ohio in the basin drained by the northern branch of the Columbia. But such is the fact, and it is represented as being a fertile and attractive section, possessed of a mild and equable climate. The stock-raisers of southern Idaho drive their cattle by the ten thousand into British Columbia to find winter pasturage.
The general characteristics of that area have been fully set forth in a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society of London by Lieutenant Palmer of the Royal Engineers. He says: —
"The scenery of the whole midland belt, especially of that portion of it lying to the east of the 124th meridian, is exceedingly beautiful and picturesque. The highest