California and the North-west Coast. 251 



with maps, upon which were delineated his ideas of the 

 mountains and rivers of the interior and of the coast. 1 He 

 rejected the notion of the truth of De Fonte's voyage, of the 

 sea of the west, and of De Fuca's strait, and preferred 

 generally the data given in the Spanish maps of the earliest 

 period. These, the Dutch and English geographers had, 

 with good reason, little by little disregarded in their maps, 

 or had given undue preference to the account of some one 

 of the navigators. In accordance with his theory, Engel 

 between 35 and 40° of latitude stretches our west- 

 ern coast through 25° of longitude to the west, instead 

 of less than five, as is the real fact ; and draws five 

 rivers running due west to the Pacific from the interior, 

 between 36 and 48° north latitude, one of them flowing 

 over 50 degrees of longitude. 



The results of Engel's studies, when compared with our 

 present knowledge, show that as little value was to be 

 attached to the Spanish maps as to his own speculations. 

 They were all alike constructed from unreliable data as 

 regards the north-west coast in almost every particular. 



Maps published in Loudon as late as 1775, (Sayer & 

 Bennett's), adopt Engel's views in part, and a river is re- 

 presented as flowing into the Pacific in latitude 45° due 

 west, out of Lake Winnipeg. These maps trace some- 

 times an imaginary north-west coast, but only refer to De 

 Fonte, De Fuca, Chinese or Japanese maps for their au- 

 thority. Some maps of this date treat the coast as unknown 

 north of 43°, and leave an absolute blank from that point. 



We have thus followed the discoveries of the North 

 West coast up to one hundred years since. And one hun- 

 dred years since commenced the re-discovery by the Span- 

 iards of Upper California. An ecclesiastico-military expe- 



'•Memoires et Observations geographiques et critiques sur la situation 

 des pays septentrionaux del'Asie et de l'Amerique. Lausanne, 1765. 4to. 



