It
Is A Widely Distributed Tree, Extending Northward Through British
Columbia, Southward Through Oregon And California, And Eastward To
The Rocky Mountains.
The timber is used for shipbuilding, spars,
piles, and the framework of houses, bridges, etc.
In the California
lumber markets it is known as "Oregon pine." In Utah, where it is
common on the Wahsatch Mountains, it is called "red pine." In
California, on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, it forms, in
company with the yellow pine, sugar pine, and incense cedar, a pretty
well-defined belt at a height of from three to six thousand feet
above the sea; but it is only in Oregon and Washington, especially
in this Puget Sound region, that it reaches its very grandest
development, - tall, straight, and strong, growing down close to
tidewater.
All the towns of the Sound had a hopeful, thrifty aspect. Port
Townsend, picturesquely located on a grassy bluff, was the port of
clearance for vessels sailing to foreign parts. Seattle was famed
for its coal-mines, and claimed to be the coming town of the North
Pacific Coast. So also did its rival, Tacoma, which had been selected
as the terminus of the much-talked-of Northern Pacific Railway.
Several coal-veins of astonishing thickness were discovered the
winter before on the Carbon River, to the east of Tacoma, one of them
said to be no less than twenty-one feet, another twenty feet, another
fourteen, with many smaller ones, the aggregate thickness of all the
veins being upwards of a hundred feet.
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