formerly it was being eaten away by the impingement of the current upon the shore-line.
Tansy Point, on the northeast corner of the Clatsop Peninsula, and adjoining the military reservation, has recently been laid off in town lots, and named New Astoria. This brings to mind the project of some adventurers of 1839, one of whom was J. T. Farnham, author of the "History of Oregon Territory," and another, Medorum Crawford, of Salem, in this State, to build a city to be a second New York, on this identical point. We build cities with wonderful rapidity in these days, with every force made available. But wdiat courage and wbat imagination must these young fellows have had, who crossed the continent by hook and by crook" to found a New York at the mouth of the Columbia! Few of them ever saw their destination.
Another recent town enterprise is East Astoria, laid out above Tongue Point, at the mouth of John Day River, an affluent of the Columbia. As a suburb of Astoria it will in time be settled up, but as an independent site it has no apparent advantages. A local railway line has been projected which is to connect New Astoria with old Astoria by following around the shore of Young's Bay to Smith's Point, which is also now laid off in city lots. A similar connection will probably be made with the eastern addition. Astoria, although the oldest American settlement on the Pacific coast, has been very slow of development. The situation for a commercial entrepót, although in some respects a fine one, had its drawbacks, being cut off from the interior by the densely-timbered mountains of the Coast Range, and having apparently few resources outside of salmon canning, which business is of comparatively recent date. If you had asked an Astorian in 1870 what constituted the importance of his town, present or future, he would have told you that it had a commodious harbor, with depth of water enough to accommodate vessels of the deepest draft, with good anchorage, and shelter from southwest (winter) storms. He would have pointed to the forts at the mouth of the river, which made business; to the custom-house, which brought business; to the pilotage of all incoming and outgoing vessels; to a certain amount of lumber manufactured here, and cement manufactured
