Here the two sides of the Cascade Mountains must again, as under other heads, be considered separately. The natural vegetation of the west side is vast rather than varied. Wherever the sun touches the ground, one may expect to see grass; chiefly white clover and green sward, which seem to be indigenous to the country. There are, of course, many herbs and shrubs which need not be mentioned in a report like this. The ferns of the Snoqualmie bottoms, for size, remind one of the tree ferns of the carboniferous period, though, of course, not so large. Many of them were seven feet high, which is five feet higher than I ever saw elsewhere. The Sal-al is a low shrub, almost herbaceous, and semi-procumbent, of brown foliage, bearing a berry and belonging to the wintergreen family, though much larger than the wintergreen of the Alleghenies. The Sal-al abounds on the little prairie which bears its name. The mosses are most abundant and luxuriant in the deep, moist shades of the evergreen forests, and I noticed that the Cayuse ponies fed upon them as eagerly as reindeer upon the Iceland mosses. [Sidenote: Deciduous trees.] Deciduous trees are rare, but not wholly wanting. The cottonwood grows to rather extra size. The alder, which is only a large bush in the Alleghenies, here becomes a tree, perhaps thirty feet high. I saw some small maples. It is said that there are groves of oak and maple of sufficient size to cut for lumber. [Illustration: A VIEW OF THE FOREST ON THE LINE OF THE SEATTLE, LAKE SHORE AND EASTERN RAILWAY.] [Sidenote: Larch.] The Larch (tamarack) is interspersed among the evergreens on the Cascade Mountains, and attains good size. The American larch is rather more slender in habit than the European variety, but it has a heavy, close-grained wood, and is regarded as specially suited for railroad ties--an important point in this country. It is also reported to make durable fence-posts and ground sills. In Europe its bark is valued for tanning next to oak bark, and the two are used together. The Venice turpentine comes from the resinous sap of the larch. The older trees are better than the younger ones for durability. But with regard to this class of trees, results depend much on incidental circumstances. Larch is one of the woods used in Europe for making gas. These are the only deciduous trees I know of in Washington Territory, except fruit trees. [Sidenote: Extraordinary evergreen forests.] Evergreens constitute the bulk of the great forests, and I shall name these in the order of their importance: Douglas (or red) fir, white cedar, hemlock spruce, white pine, balsam (or white) fir and yew. [Sidenote: Douglas fir, or Oregon pine.] [Sidenote: The best of ship timber.]