ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 57 



point to point." (Compare Erman's Reise um die Erde, Abth. i. 

 bd. iii. s. 8, Abth. ii. bd. i. s. 386, with his Archiv fiir wissen- 

 schaftliche Kunde von Russland, bd. vi. s. 671.) 



The Rocky Mountains which sink down towards the Mackenzie 

 River, which is covered a large portion of the year with ice, and the 

 highlands from which single snow-clad summits rise, are altogether 

 distinct from the more westerly and higher mountains of the coast, 

 or the chain of the Californian Maritime Alps, the Sierra Nevada de 

 California. However ill selected the now generally used name of 

 the Rocky Mountains, to designate the most northerly continuation 

 of the Mexican Central Chain, it does not appear to me desirable to 

 change it, as has been often proposed, for that of the Oregon Chain. 

 Although these mountains do indeed contain the sources of Lewis's, 

 Clark's, and North Fork, the three chief branches which form the 

 mighty Oregon, or Columbia River, yet this river also breaks 

 through the Californian chain of snow-clad Maritime Alps. The 

 name of Oregon District is also employed politically and officially 

 for the smaller territory west of the Coast Chain, where Fort Van- 

 couver and the Walahmutti settlements are situated, and therefore 

 it is the more desirable not to give the name of Oregon either to the 

 Central or the Coast Chain. This name is connected with a most 

 singular mistake of an eminent geographer, M. Malte Brun : Reading 

 on an old Spanish map, "And it is not yet known (y aun se ignora) 

 where the source of this river" (the river now called the Columbia) 

 a is situated," he thought he recognized in the word ignora the name 

 of Oregon. (See my Essai politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, t. 

 ii. p. 314.) 



The ro.cks- which, 'where the Columbia breaks through the Chain, 

 form the Cataracts, mark the continuation of the Sierra Nevada de 

 California from the 44th to the 47th degree of latitude. (Fremont, 

 Geographical Memoir upon Upper California, 1848, p. 6.) This 

 northern continuation comprises the three colossal summits of Mount 

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

 than 14,540 French or 15,500 English feet above the level of the 

 sea. The height of this Coast Chain, or Range, far exceeds, there- 

 fore, that of the Rocky Mountains. "During a journey of eight 

 months' duration which was made along the Maritime Alps/' says 



