.
Running in a south-easterly direction for upwards of one hundred miles,
its further progress is suddenly stopped by a range of snow-clad
mountain, at the base of which, spreading abroad its mighty arms to the
north and south, it gives to the continent the appearance of a vast
archipelago.

Of the Straits of Fuca and surrounding shores, the latest and fullest
information we possess is that contained in the letter of the _Times'_
special correspondent, published on 27th August. He says:--

"We have now rounded Cape Flattery, and are in the Straits of Fuca,
running up between two shores of great beauty. On the left is the
long-looked-for Island of Vancouver, an irregular aggregation of hills,
shewing a sharp angular outline as they become visible in the early
dawn, covered with the eternal pines, saving only occasional sunny
patches of open greensward, very pretty and picturesque, but the hills
not lofty enough to be very striking. The entire island, property
speaking, is a forest. On the right we have a long massive chain of
lofty mountains covered with snow, called the Olympian range--very
grand, quite Alpine in aspect. This is the peninsula, composed of a
series of mountains running for many miles in one unbroken line, which
divides the Straits of Fuca from Puget Sound. It belongs to America, in
the territory of Washington, is uninhabited, and, like its opposite
neighbour, has a covering of pines far up towards the summit. The tops
of these mountains are seldom free from snow. The height is unknown,
perhaps 15,000 feet. We ran up through this scenery early in the
morning, biting cold, for about forty miles to Esquimault Harbour--_the_
harbour--which confers upon Vancouver's Island its pre-eminence.

"From the information of old miners, who pointed out some of the
localities on the northern coast of California, and indicated the
position of places in Oregon in which they had dug for gold, I had a
strong corroboration of an opinion which I stated in one of my late
letters--that the Fraser River diggings were a continuation of the great
goldfield of California. The same miners had a theory that these
northern mines would be richer than any yet discovered, because the more
northern portions of California are richer than the central and southern
portions.

"The harbour of Esquimault is a circular bay, or rather a basin,
hollowed by nature out of the solids rock. We slid in through the
narrow entrance betwee