so, seattle, bellingham, olympia all were small communities of 50-200 people prior to the coming of the transcontinental. at the conclusion of the civil war and the announcement that the railroad was coming, every community hoped that they would be the terminal city and that they would be chosen for the railroad. it came down to being between seattle, tacoma, and olympia. and so by 1873, early in 1873 the transcontinental obviously was being built into directions. it didn't have one railhead. but the big decision was congress in the charter for the railroad had dictated that the section from the columbia river to puget sound needed to be completed and the railroad company needed to bring steam engines to saltwater by december 1873. in july of that year, the track had been laid from the columbia about halfway to what is today i-5. in july of that year the railroad was entertaining offers from various communities, cash, lands, port facilities whatever a city put together to lure the railroad there. in july of 1873, july 14 the final decision between seattle and tacoma was made and tacoma

and this is a place near bellingham, washington, washington state. and making of north america, a nova special aired in 2015. we were up in southern alaska filming a beach where i knew there were fossil leaves, but i was expecting leaves-- and much to my amazement and good luck it happened on camera, we pried up a palm frond up from a beach in alaska, it's seven feet wide and it has tropical rain forest leaves next to it, nearest town is sitka alaska. wow, how far do palms go? i went to the valley, latitude 61, and here is an outcrop of geologic strata the same age. and we're using an alaska climbing stick, and it's a way to climb up if you don't have a ladder. and we're looking at the outcrop, because one of my buddies spotted from the road and spotted what was in fact a palm frond. those the northernmost. and in geology, that's the northernmost because that's the northern one you've found. so what we know is that the, in the hot house earth, the world was pretty warm at high latitudes. so if you're thinking about your own personal global warming st