Art. XII. — California and the North-west Coast one 

 hundred years since. By Henry A. Homes, A.M. 



[Read before the Albany Institute, Feb. 15, 1870.] 



Our familiarity of late years with the geography, the 

 products and the increasing population . of the Western 

 empire of the United States on the shores of the Pacific, 

 makes the reflection seem the more astonishing that a cen- 

 tury since, this coast was unknown and had hardly been 

 touched by the foot of an European. 



It is evident from the history of geographical discovery 

 that a century since, California, Oregon, Washington ter- 

 ritory and British Columbia were both in their coasts and 

 their interior almost absolutely unknown. At that time 

 the name of California was given to all the coast that 

 stretched north of the peninsula on the maps. More than 

 two hundred and eighty years had elapsed from the date 

 of the discovery of America, from 1492 to 1769, before 

 the mere outline of its north-west coast had been traced 

 by Europeans. From the date of the discovery of Mon- 

 terey, latitude 36° 40', and of Cape Blanc in latitude 

 43°, by Sebastien Viscayno (Biscaien) in 1602, for a period 

 of one hundred and sixty years, not a new point was made 

 on these west coasts of America, until the year 1775. 

 Even Viscayno had gone no farther north than Cabrillo in 

 1542. 



When we remember that Lower California had been 

 discovered in 1535, by the same commander, Cortes, who 

 had conquered Mexico, it certainly becomes extraordinary 

 that a coast directly continuous with California, remained 

 still unknown, two hundred and thirty-five years afterwards. 



[Trans. vi.~\ 31 



