190 BALL 



Meanwhile other nations had become dimly aware of an 

 unoccupied empire, rich in furs and affording a market 

 for trade, on the northeast border of the Great Ocean. 



Spain, through her representatives in Mexico, made the 

 first move, and Ensign Juan Perez reached the latitude of 

 Dixon Entrance in 1774. The following year Bodega and 

 Maurelle attained to the vicinity of Sitka Sound, where 

 they saw and named Mount San Jacinto, now known as 

 Edgecombe. In 1776 the immortal James Cook sailed 

 from Plymouth, England, for a voyage of discovery in the 

 North Pacific. On the roster of his officers we read the 

 well-known names of Clerke, King, Bligh (later of the 

 Bounty), Burney, Gore (of Virginia), John Ledyard (of 

 Connecticut), and Vancouver (as midshipman). During 

 the spring of 1778 Cook traced the northwest Ameri- 

 can coast from Nootka to Icy Cape and then turned back 

 to meet his fate among the islands of Hawaii. Some 

 additions to the work were made the following year by 

 Clerke and Gore, while the Spanish vessels under Arteaga 

 and Bodega pushed their researches as far as Prince Wil- 

 liam Sound. 



We owe to Cook the first generally accurate delinea- 

 tion and positions of the Northwest coast as a whole, and 

 it is surprising how near he came to the best modern re- 

 sults obtained with far superior instruments. Those who 

 followed him, for many years, added and elucidated chiefly 

 in details. 



In 1781 Shelikoff, Golikoff, and other merchants of Si- 

 beria formed a corporation for the more effective manage- 

 ment of their business, and dispatched vessels to the 

 Northwest coast. The French naval captain La Perouse 

 with a shipful of young noblemen, who apparently dis- 

 dained to trouble themselves with navigation or seaman- 

 ship, touched in 1786 on the northwest coast near the 

 Fairweather ground, surveyed Lituya Bay and lost two 



