Wonderland; or, Alaska and the inland passage: With a description of the country traversed by the Northern Pacific RailroadHyde, John
History
Wonderland; or, Alaska and the inland passage: With a description of the country traversed by the Northern Pacific Railroad
Hyde, John
Alaska -- Description and travel; Northern Pacific Railroad Company; Northwest, Pacific -- Description and travel
Mount Tacoma has, embedded in its mighty bosom, no fewer than fifteen
glaciers, three of which have been rendered accessible to visitors.
Comparing them with the glaciers of the Alps, Senator Edmunds, of
Vermont, declares that the finest effects he witnessed during the course
of a long tour in Switzerland, fell far short of what he saw on his
visit to Mount Tacoma. At the great hotel, at Tacoma City, guides and
camping outfits are always obtainable. Excursion parties are frequently
made up during the summer season, the trip being entirely free from
difficulty or danger, even to ladies.
It is at the city of Tacoma that the tourist first looks over the blue
waters of Puget Sound. This is the western terminus of the Northern
Pacific Railroad. Occupying a commanding position upon a high plateau
overlooking Admiralty Inlet, Tacoma has an excellent harbor, capable of
receiving the largest ocean-going vessels. It has also some fine public
buildings, among them being the Anna Wright Seminary for girls, a
monument of the beneficence of Mr. C. B. Wright, of Philadelphia. Its
luxuriously furnished hotel, the Tacoma, erected at a cost of $200,000,
occupies one of the finest sites in the world, overlooking, as it does,
the picturesque shores of the bay, and commanding a magnificent view of
the imperial mountain.
A few miles northward is Seattle, also with an excellent harbor, and the
promise of becoming a city of great importance, an extensive section of
rich country being naturally tributary to it.
There is no more delightful climate than that of Puget Sound. The
summers are cool, the maximum temperature at Tacoma in the summer of
1884 being eighty-nine degrees, and in that of 1885, eighty-five degrees
only.
The Cascade division of the railroad, extending eastward from Tacoma, is
developing a very rich bituminous coal country, and great quantities of
the mineral are being shipped from Tacoma, where immense bunkers have
been erected to facilitate its exportation. This line also reaches the
fine hop growing country of the Puyallup valley, whose product has
steadily risen in Eastern markets, until now it commands as high a price
as that of the State of New York.
But never was the tourist less disposed than now to concern himself with
agricultural or commercial statistics. With eager expectation, impatient
of delay, he is hastening toward that veritable Wonderland of the World
that constitutes the Mecca of his pilgrimage. He is about to enter upon
the final stage of his long journey, in that far-famed Inland Passage,
whose incomparable scenery, extending in one unbroken chain for more
than a thousand miles, alone surpasses those stupendous works of Nature
upon which he has so recently gazed.
JOHN HYDE.
ALASKA AND THE INLAND PASSAGE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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