The Great Archipelago [pp. 344-347]

Thle Great Archipelago.
they reach maturity, instead of being
condemned to idleness at the very time
when they begin to be most capable of
usefulness, will become a power in the
world's progress. Already we begin to
feel the increasing influence of women,
-in literature, in education, in public
charities, in various ways; and'the
prophet that forecasts the future of our
civilization will have no true vision of
the time to come, unless he recognizes
this new and potent factor.
Horace Davis.
THE GREAT ARCHIPELAGO.
FROM Olympia, in latitude 47 deg. and
longitude I23 deg., to Mount Fairweather, in latitude 59 deg. and longitude 136 deg., a distance of more than
IOOO miles, as far as from Savannah to
Boston, where eleven American States
front on the Atlantic, the northwestern
coast of our continent is fringed by a remarkable labyrinth of islands and inlets,
to which Meares, the distinguished navigator, gave the appropriate name, the
"Great Archipelago." Professor Davidson, who adopts Meares's title, says of
the region, that it " is unequaled in the
world for safe and bold inland navigation. The scherries of Finland and the
fiords of Norway sink into insignificance
before the great dimensions of these
straits and sounds." The inlets south
of the Strait of Fuca are included in the
general term, the Great Archipelago,
for they include a multitude of islands,
and they have the same general characteristics as the inlets farther north. All
belong to one system, extending, as
Davidson says, from "the mouth of the
Chilcat to the head of Puget Sound."
This archipelago is remarkable for
the depth of water, the steepness of
bank, and the narrowness of channel in
its inlets; for the multitude of its
islands, which exceed two thousand in
number; for the proximity of the islands
to one another; for the extent of shore
line, which exceeds twenty thousand
miles; for the safety with which small
boats can undertake long voyages; and
for the unparalleled facility for transporting merchandise by water. Many
of the inlets are each more than fifty
miles long, and as they do not average
two miles in width, they resemble rivers.
In the small area of its water surface,
as compared with the multitude and size
of its islands and the extent of its shore
line, this may be called the most dense
of all archipelagos; and density, in this
sense, implies facility of intercourse and
prospective activity of business.
Among the islands the largest are
Vancouver, with I6,ooo square miles;
the Prince of Wales and two Queen
Charlotte Islands, with each about 4,ooo; the Baranoff, Chicagoff, and Admiralty, each with about 2,000. There
are a multitude of smaller islands, each
with 500 or more square miles.
Of Puget Sound and Hood's Canal,
Commodore Wilkes, in his official report, wrote: "Nothing can exceed the
beauty of these waters and their safety.
Not a shoal exists within the Straits of
Juan de Fuca,Admiralty Inlet, or Hood's
Canal, that can in any way interrupt
their navigation by a seventy-four-gun
ship. I venture nothing in saying there
is no country in the world that possesses
waters equal to these. They cover an
area of about 7,000o square miles. The
shores of all these inlets and bays are
344
[October,