ILLUSTRATIONS (5). CALIFORNIA!* COAST RANGE. 37 



coast chain, where Fort Vancouver and the Walahnmtti 

 settlements are situated ; and it would therefore seem better 

 to abstain from applying the name of Oregon either to the 

 central or to the coast chain. This denomination, moreover, 

 led the celebrated geographer Malte-Brun into a misconcep- 

 tion of the most remarkable kind. He read in an old Spanish 

 chart the following passage : " And it is still unknown (y 

 aun se ignora] where the source of this river" (now called the 

 Columbia) "is situated," and he believed that the word ignora 

 signified the name of the Oregon.* 



The rocks which give rise to the cataracts of the Columbia 

 at the point where the river breaks through the chain, mark 

 the prolongation of the Sierra Nevada of California from the 

 44th to the 47th degree of latitude-! In this northern pro- 

 longation of the chain lie the three colossal elevations of 

 Mount Jefferson, Mount Hood, and Mount St. Helen's, which 

 rise 14,540 Parisian (or 15,500 English) feet above the sea- 

 level. The height of this coast chain or range far exceeds 

 therefore that of the Rocky Mountains. " During an eight 

 months' journey along these maritime Alps," says Captain 

 Fremont,J " we were constantly within sight of snow-covered 

 summits ; and while we were able to cross the Rocky Moun- 

 tains through the South Pass at an elevation of 7027 feet, 

 we found that the passes in the maritime range, which is 

 divided into several parallel chains, were more than 2000 

 feet higher" and therefore only 1 1 70 (English) feet below the 

 summit of Mount Etna. It is also a very remarkable fact, 

 and one which reminds us of the relations of the eastern and 

 western Cordilleras of Chili, that volcanoes still active are 

 only found in the Californian chain which lies in the closest 

 proximity to the sea. The conical mountains of Regnier and 

 of St. Helen's are almost invariably observed to emit smoke; 

 and on the 23rd of November, 1843, the latter of these 

 volcanoes erupted a mass of ashes which covered the shores 

 of the Columbia for a distance of forty miles, like a fall of 

 snow. To the volcanic Califoiiiian chain belong also in the 

 far north of Russian America, Mount Elias (according to La 

 Perouse 1980 toises, or 12,660 feet, and according to Mala- 

 spina 2792 toises, or 17,850 feet in height), and Mount Fair 



* See my Essai polit. sur la Nouv. Espagne, t. ii. p. 314. 



t Fremont, Geographical Memoir upon Upper California, 1848, p. 6. 



J JReport, p. 274 (or Narrative, p. 300). 



