Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/387

ited with increasing frequency by foreigners, or persons whose blood was neither Indian nor Spanish. England, the United States, Russia, and France were the nations chiefly represented. "All had come from the South, or West, or North, by the broad highway of the Pacific Ocean, bounding the territory on the west, and leading to within a few miles of the most inland Spanish settlements." The inland boundary—an arc for the most part of sierras nevadas so far as could be seen, with a zone of desert beyond still unknown—had never yet been crossed by man of foreign race, nor trod, if we except the southern segment cut by a line from San Gabriel to Mojave, by other than aboriginal feet. The "grand advance movement" of fur-hunting pioneers began in 1826, "when the inland barrier of mountain and desert was first passed, and from that date the influx of foreigners by overland routes becomes a topic of ever-growing importance." But no record of even tolerable completeness exists or could be expected to exist concerning it. The movement was generally directed farther north, but some of the trappers found their way into California. Those foreigners who came to stay seemed to enjoy an appreciation of their worth, and to have been liked by the people, with less prejudice against them, perhaps, than was felt against Mexicans. Citizenship, wives, and lands were easily obtained by those whose conduct was regular. "New-comers had to comply with certain formalities, and they were occassionally reminded that they were under surveillance, but no cases of oppression were recorded." The first recorded trip overland was made in 1826, by Jedediah S. Smith, who went from the Great Salt Lake by the Virgin and Colorado Rivers. Returning, he was the first to cross the Sierra Nevada, in May and June, 1827. Science is interested in two of the transient visitors of whom record is made in this period. The first was David Douglas, the famous Scotch botanist, who, after having spent five or six years in botanical researches in the North, came down from the Columbia to investigate the flora of California, arriving at Monterey in December, 1830. He had letters and influence, by the aid of which he obtained permission to prosecute his researches for six months, and, in fact, remained for twenty months. To return to British Columbia, he had to take a roundabout voyage by way of Honolulu. There was a current rumor in later years that he had found on the roots of his California plants gold enough to make a watch-seal! He perished in 1834 by falling into a pit, where he was trampled to death by a wild bull that had fallen in before him. The botanical results of his trip were published by Sir William Hooker in 1841. The other scientific visitor was Dr. Thomas Coulter, who in 1832 communicated to the London Geographical Society the results of a trip from Monterey via San Gabriel to the Rio Colorado and back, made in 1832. He published a map, which included the country as far north as the Bay of San Francisco and as far east as the Tule Lakes.