THE WESTERN TERMINUS.
Puget Sound, with its numerous inlets, is a deep indentation of the Pacific coast, one hundred miles north of the Columbia. It has spacious harbors, securely land-locked, with a surrounding country abounding in timber, with exhaustless beds of coal, rich in agricultural resources, and with numerous mill-streams. Nature has stamped it with her seal, and set it apart to be the New England of the Pacific coast.
That portion of the country is to be peopled by farmers, mechanics, and artisans. California is rich in mineral wealth. Her valleys and mountain-slopes yield abundant harvests; but she has few mill-streams, and is dependent upon Oregon and Washington for her coal and lumber. An inferior quality of coal is mined at Mount Diablo in California; but most of the coal consumed in that State is brought from Puget Sound. Hence Nature has fixed the locality of the future manufacturing industry of the Pacific. Puget Sound is nearer than San Francisco, by several hundred miles, to Japan, China, and Australia. It is therefore the natural port of entry and departure for our Pacific trade. It has advantages over San Francisco, not only in being nearer to those countries, but in having coal near at hand, which settles the question of the future steam marine of the Pacific.
Passengers, goods of high cost, and bills of exchange, move on the shortest and quickest lines of travel. No business man takes the way-train in preference to the express. Sailing vessels make the voyage from Puget Sound to Shanghai in from thirty to forty days. Steamers will make it in twenty.