The delta is now practically joined to the eastern side of the San Juan Islands. The railroad reaches the islands by means of a trestle across the intervening tidal flats, delivering its load of logs at the mills and leaving the passengers at the town of Anacortes, where they may take one of the many steamers passing up and down the sound.
FIG. 57.—THE DELTA OF THE SKAGIT RIVER
Enveloping former islands in Puget Sound
Of all the deltas now forming about Puget Sound that of the Skagit is the largest and most interesting. One might think that the forests would so protect the slopes that erosion would not be rapid, but the valleys of all the tributary streams appear deeply filled with rock fragments, which have, for the most part, accumulated from the higher portions of the range, where frost and ice are slowly tearing down the cliffs. At each period of flood some of this material is passed on to the river, which in turn drops it upon the borders of its delta.
The Skagit River, from its source to its mouth, takes the traveller through varying climates and life zones, from the barren crest where the miner is the only inhabitant, down through forests where the lumberman is busy, until it leaves him upon the rich meadows of its delta.
[THE STORY OF LAKE CHELAN]
Chelan is the largest and most beautiful of our mountain lakes. The lake itself is most attractive, and the basin in which it lies has had an interesting history, so that it is well worth study.
Notwithstanding the beauties of this lake, it is not widely known, for it is situated far away from the main lines of travel, in a remote cañon of the Cascade Range. Fortunately the lake and the rugged mountains about it have been included in a forest reserve, so that they will be kept in all their wild natural beauty.
The Columbia River, in its crooked course across the state of Washington, follows for some distance the junction of the vast treeless plateau of the central portion and the rugged, forest-clad slopes of the Cascade Range. We have already learned how the plateau grew to its present extent through the outpouring of successive floods of lava which swept around the higher mountains like an ocean.