All this agitation could not go for nothing. By dint of sailing up and down the west coast of the continent some actual discoveries of importance were made, and other hints of things not yet discovered were received. There even appeared upon the Spanish charts the name of a river somewhere between the fortieth and fiftieth parallels,—the San Roque,—supposed to be a large stream, possibly the long-sought channel of communication with the Atlantic; but no account of having entered it was ever given. Then vague mention began to be made of the "River of the West," whose latitude and longitude nobody knew.
Just before the War of the Revolution, a colonial captain, one Jonathan Carver, being inspired with a desire to know more of the interior of the continent, travelled as far west as the head-waters of the Mississippi. While on this tour, he heard, from the Indians with whom he conversed, some mention of other Indians to the west, who told tales of a range of mountains called Stony Mountains, and of a great river rising in them, and flowing westward to the sea, which they callled Oregon, or Origan.
After the War of the Revolution, Great Britain resumed her voyages of discovery. A fleet was fitted out to survey the northwest coast of America, which it was thought might be claimed by her on account of the voyage to it by Captain Cook, some years previous. The surveys conducted by Captain Vancouver were elaborate and scientific. He, too, like those who had gone before him, was looking for the "River of the West," or the Northwest Passage.
But that obtuseness of perception which sometimes overtakes the most sharp-sighted overtook Captain Vancouver when his vessel passed the legendary river; for it was broad daylight and clear weather, so that he saw the headlands, and still he declared that there was no river there,—only a sort of bay.
Fortunately, a sharper eye than his had scanned the same opening not long before: the eye of one of that proverbially sharp nation, the Yankee. Captain Robert Gray, sailing a vessel in the employ of a firm of Boston traders, in taking a look at the inlet, and noticing the color of the water, did think
