The soil conditions of eastern and western Washington are quite as dissimilar as the climate. When we contemplate the influence that the Columbia river exerts, we are quite apt to associate and limit them to Oregon, but in reality the river dominates Washington far more than Oregon. It is mainly some of its southern tributaries that exert their influence over the latter. The major portion of the Columbia valley lies in eastern Washington. On first appearance that is a somewhat monotonous and a very peculiar country, made so by the comparatively recent origin of the surface strata. During a former epoch, it has been the bed of a lake. The lake has been filled and obliterated by a mountain, perhaps Tacoma, then, of course, an active volcano. The output of the mountain fills and overlies much of the valley resting upon the sands and gravel of the old lake bed. The mass is mainly basalt, whose prismatic columns are seen in most of the hills. During the closing epoch of the volcanic period, vast masses of volcanic ashes were thrown out, and now aid in forming the rich potash-laden soils of the valley, precious for wheat, vineyards and orcharding.

The economic geology of western Washington is equally, if not more, interesting. Here the working factor in soil formation was cold instead of heat. The soils are older than those east of the Cascades. Mount Tacoma was again the probable center of activities, this time glacial. Puget valley had been the bed of a lake in which the characteristic and prevailing gravelly soils were laid down in very unquiet waters. Then the conditions changed; the climate became arctic, perhaps like Alaska now, the icebergs finding exit into the ocean through the straights of Juan de Fuca, plowing out the ravines and complicated channels of the sound. The whole surface of the county was changed by abrasion and denudation. The country is now densely wooded with mainly evergreen instead of deciduous forests. One can see but a few rods into these forests, the boles of the trees seeming a solid mass of timber. The man-zanita, a pretty evergreen shrub of six feet in California, here becomes a tree of twenty feet. The river bottoms are rich and productive lands. The gravelly prairies and uplands are better adapted to grapes, and fruit culture than general farming.

Nearly all the fruits of the east do well and produce abundantly. - D. S. Marvin, Tacoma, Washington.