to her first position off the Chinook village, and was again surrounded by the canoes of that people. The Chinook village remains to-day, but its people are no longer numerous.
Captain Gray was thinking of getting to sea again by the 18th; but on standing down the river towards the bar, the wind came light and fluttering, and again the anchor was dropped. He must now decide upon a name for this great stream, which from its volume he knew must come from the heart of the continent. The log of the 19th says, "Fresh and clear weather. Early a number of canoes came alongside: seamen and tradesmen employed in their various departments. Captain Gray gave the river the name of Columbia's River; and the north side of the entrance, Cape Hancock; that on the south side, Point Adams."
On the 20th of May the ship lifted anchor, made sail, and stood down the river, coming, as the following extract will show, near being wrecked: "At two the wind left us, we being on the bar with a very strong tide, which set on the breakers. It was now not possible to get out without a breeze to shoot her across the tide; so we were obliged to bring up in three and a half fathoms, the tide running five knots. At three-quarters past two a fresh wind came in from seaward; we immediately came to sail and beat over the bar, having from five to seven fathoms water in the channel. At five p.m. we were out, clear of all the bars, and in twenty fathoms water."
Captain Gray proceeded from Columbia's River to Nootka Sound, a favorite harbor for trading vessels, but in dispute at that time between Spain and Great Britain. Here he reported his discovery to the Spanish comandante, Quadra, and gave him a copy of his charts. In the controversy which afterwards happened between Great Britain and the United States concerning the title to the Oregon territory, the value of this precaution became apparent: for in that controversy the comandante's evidence destroyed the pretensions of Vancouver's lieutenant, Broughton, who, on having heard of Gray's discovery, returned to the Columbia River, and made a survey of it up as far as the mouth of the Wallamet, founding upon this survey the claim of Great Britain to a discovery-title. The subterfuge was resorted to of denying that the Columbia was
