WASHINGTON TERRITORY, a territory of the United States, in lat. 45° 30' to 49° n.; long. 117° to 125° w.; bounded a. by British Columbia, e. by the territory of Idaho, s. by the Columbia river, which separates it from Oregon, w. by the Pacific ocean. Estimated area, 69,994 sq. miles. Its capital is Olympia. Port Townsend is a flourish site on Puget's sound; and other new towns, with a multitude of mining villages and camps, are scattered over the territory. The chief rivers are the Columbia or Oregon, on the southern border, which also drains the whole territory e. of the Cascade mouhains; the Okonagan, its great northern branch, flowing from the lake of the same name in British Columbia; Lewis or Snake river; and numerous streams emptying into Puget's sound and the Pacific. Washington territory is rich in sounds and harbors. Puget's sound, from 1 to 4 in. wide, and 8 fathoms or more in depth, opens out of the strait of Juan de Fuca, penetrating 100 m. into the heart of the country, and with its bays and islands forming one of the finest collections of harbors in the world. Hood's canal., a narrower channal on the w., extends 60 miles. Bellingham, on the eastern shore of the gulf of Georgia. has a tide of 20 feet. There are also large and deep liar hors, suitable for naval stations, on the strait of Juan de Fuca. The great range of Cascade mountains, a continuation of the Sierra Nevada, passes through the center of the territory from n. to s., about 100 m. from the coast. Its chief summits are mount Baker. lat. 4S° 44', 11,900 ft., an active volcano; mount Rainier, lat. 46° 40', 12,330 ft., an extinct volcano: mount $t. Helen, 9,550 ft., nearly extinct; mount Adams, 9,000 ft., entirely extinct. East of the Cascade mountains, the soil is thin, rocky, dry, sad sterile, but with fertile valleys; on the w., and especially around Puget's sound, the soil is rich, and the country covered with a dense evergreen forest. West of the l Cascades, the formation is of tertiary sandstone; near the sound, the alluvium has a depth 100 feet.
Lignite, or tertiary coal, is found in many places. The mountains are granitic, mid near mount Adams is a large field of lava. East of the Cascade mountains, the forma tions are igneous and metamorphic, with trap and volcanic scoria;. There are rich gold diggings in the north-eastern portion. The climate iu the western district is almost pre cisely that of England, with a rain-fall of 53 in.; c. of the mountains, there is but a quarter of the rain-fall, and extremes of heat and cold. The timber in the western dis trict is ofgreat richness and abundance; the red fir and yellow fir (abies fouglasii and A. grandb4), growing 300 ft. high, and 6 to 8 ft. in diameter. The vegetable and animal productions are the, same as in Oregon. Fish are very abundant, a dozen species of salmon tilling all the streams, with halibut, cod, herrings, and sardines in great quanti ties. The water and mountain'scenery is among the finest on thy continent. The chief product is timber, of'which 250,000,000 ft. were produced in 1875. Steam saw-mills on Puget's sound and Hood's canal saw 150,000 ft. a day. Wheal. barley, oats, potatoes, and the hardier fruits are produced in abundance. This territory was discovered by .Juan de Fuca, a Greek, in 1592; visited by a Spanish navigator in 1775, and three years after by capt. Cook. In 1787, Berkeley, an Englishman, rediscovered the strait of Fuca, which had been missed by others. Capt. Gray, an American, visited the coast in 1791; and the English capt. Vancouver in 1792; capts. Lewis and Clark explored the interior during the of Jefferson, and settlements were made by the Hudson's bay company in 1828: in 1845 American settlers entered the territory, then a part of Oregon. It was constituted a separate territory in 1853. Wars with the Indians in 1855 and 1858 retarded immigration, but in the latter year 15,000 persons were attracted by the dis coveries of gold diggings at Fraser's river, many of whom became permanent settlers. White pop. '70, 22,195; Indian pop. '69, 15,808.*