nearly north, (true;) the distance to the nearest point of land a little more than three leagues, and the coast northward of Point Grenville bearing southeast, (true.) The point of land northward of the Flattery Rocks was, therefore, his Cape Flattery, and his estimated latitude of it eight miles too small. Before next day he had a very hard gale from the southwest, accompanied with rain, and he did not see land again until he reached latitude 4910. He arrived at the conclusion that between 470 and 48° there existed no inlet, as had been asserted.

From Flattery Rocks we find a high rocky coast, bordered by outlying rocks for eight miles, when a low sand beach occurs, receiving a small stream which runs east-northeast and finally north, behind the mountain constituting Cape Flattery, to within two hundred yards of the beach in Neé-ah Bay. A rise of twenty or thirty feet of the sea would make Cape Flattery an island, extending five miles (west-northwest) by three miles in breadth. This creek is used by the outer coast Indians during the prevalence of heavy winter gales, when the passage outside the cape would be impracticable.

From Point Grenville to Cape Flattery, the hills rising from the coast are about two thousand feet high, densely covered by trees, and cut up by innumerable valleys. The shore is inhabited by numerous tribes of Indians, accustomed to war, and bitterly hostile to the whites. They are far superior to the Indians found along the southern coast. Their villages are heavily stockaded, and the houses made of cedar boards, which they have cut with great industry from the tree. We have measured and found some of these boards to be over four feet wide and 20 feet long; the outside edges being about an inch thick, and three inches in the middle. Their houses are very large, and partitioned off into stalls for each family. The numerous streams emptying upon the coast afford them a never-failing supply of the finest salmon; and to obtain means of barter with white traders, they fearlessly attack and capture the different species of whale on the coast.

TATOOSH ISLAND.

This island lies west-northwest half a mile from the point of Cape Flattery. It is composed of small islets connected by reefs, is quite flat-topped, and without trees. The surface is one hundred and eight feet above high water, and the sides are perpendicular. The entire mass is composed of coarse sandstone conglomerate, with an outcrop of basalt on one of the reefs. There is a depth of two or three feet of soil upon the top, which was formerly cultivated by the Indians, who resorted here in summer, about one hundred and fifty strong, and had several houses near the only boat-landing on the inside of the island, (1852.) A reef extends a quarter of a mile off the west side of the island, and the whole extent of the island and reef is only half a mile west-northwest, by a third of a mile. Deep water is found upon all sides, except between it and the cape, where a reef exists, upon which it breaks very heavily in bad weather. We are informed that small vessels have gone through when jammed by an unfavorable wind. In so

doing great risk must have been incurred, as the currents in the vicinity run very irregularly and strong.

From the top of the island a leaning rocky column, about one hundred and forty feet high and fifty feet in diameter, is seen to the southeastward, close under the face of the cape. It shows well when approaching Tatoosh Island from the west, and is last seen from the Strait of Fuca, when the cape is just open with the east end of Tatoosh Island. It is named Pinnacle Rock; sometimes called Fuca's Pillar, but Juan de Fuca located his pinnacle on the north side of the entrance to his mythical straits.

TATOOSH ISLAND LIGHT-HOUSE.

This structure is erected on the highest part of the island, and consists of a keeper's dwelling of stone, with a tower of brick, whitewashed, rising above it, and surmounted by an iron lantern painted red, its height being sixty-six feet above the top of the island. The light was first exhibited December 28, 1857, and shows every night, from sunset to sunrise, a fixed white light of the first order of Fresnel. It is elevated one hundred and sixty-two feet above the mean sea-level, and in clear weather should be seen from a height of—

10 feet at a distance of 18.2 miles;

20 feet at a distance of 19.7 miles;

30 feet at a distance of 20.9 miles;

60 feet at a distance of 23.5 miles;

so that a vessel from the southward will make it before being up with the Flattery Rocks.

The geographical position of the light, as determined by the Coast Survey, is:

Magnetic variation, 21° 46′ east, in August 1855, with a yearly increase of 1'. The angle of visibility from the land southward, round by the west to the extreme western visible point of Vancouver Island, is 1310, and from the same starting point round by the west, up the Strait of Juan de Fuca, 263°.

This island, with its outlying reef, is the most western portion of the United States south of Alaska.

The present name is that given to us by the Indian tribe (Mak-kaw) inhabiting the cape and outer part of the strait. Their word to designate an island is opichult.

On June 29, 1788, Meares, passing the entrance to the strait, hove to off this island, was visited by the Indians, and sent an officer to examine it, who reported that it was a "solid rock covered with a little verdure, and surrounded by breakers in every direction." They also "saw a very remarkable rock that wore the appear

ance of an obelisk, and stood at some distance from the island." To this rock he gave the name of Pinnacle Rock. It is the columnar leaning rock already described. He says the "island itself appeared to be a barren rock, almost inaccessible, and of no great extent; but the surface of it, as far as we could see, was covered with inhabitants, who were gazing at the ship." "The chief of this spot, whose name is Tatooche, did us the favor of a visit, and so surly and forbidding a character we had not yet seen." The Indians evidently gave him the name of the island, which he mistook for that of the chief. His sketch of the island and cape also includes Rock Duncan.

Too-too-tche is the Nootka name for the "Thunderbird." The Muk-kaws originally came from the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Here we may be permitted to remark, that from this place to Cape Lookout, the descriptions of Meares are confirmed by the later observations of the Coast Survey.

ROCK DUNCAN.

This is a small, low, black rock, rising above the highest tides, but always washed by the western swell which breaks over it. Deep water is found close around it. From Tatoosh Island light it bears north 33° west, distant two thousand and seventy-eight yards, or more than a mile, and many vessels pass between them, as the chart shows twenty-five fathoms; but a rock has been reported in the channel, and it would be well to avoid it until the doubt is set at rest. Vancouver's vessels passed between them. The rock was first noticed by Mr. Duncan in 1788, and placed in latitude 48° 37' north, which Vancouver, who gave it the present name, considered a typographical error.

During a three months' stay at Neé-ah Harbor in 1852, we tried, upon several occasions, to land upon this rock with canoes, but could never effect our object.

DUNTZ ROCK.

Nearly a quarter of a mile off Rock Duncan, on the line from Tatoosh Island, Kellet places a rock, having three fathoms water upon it, and to which he gave this

name.

With no wind, a heavy swell from the west, ebb current, and proximity to these outlying rocks and island, a vessel's position is unsafe, and great caution should be exercised in navigating this part of the entrance to the Strait of Fuca.

CAPE FLATTERY.

This cape forms the southern head of the entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It has a bold, wild, jagged sea-face, about one hundred feet high, much disintegrated by the wearing action of the ocean; rises in a mile to an irregular hill of fifteen hundred or two thousand feet in height; is cut up by gorges and covered with a dense growth of fir and almost impenetrable underbrush from the edge of the cliffs to the summit. The shore-line round to