one PF a 
Geographical trading posts. In the year 1803 the Government of 
Historica 
Surv 
the United States, recognizing the importance of 
these western possessions, sent an expedition under 
Lewis and Clark across the Rocky Mountains to ex- 
plore this country, and to take possession thereof in 
the name of the United States. Lewis and Clark 
ascended the Missouri to its sources; then, battling 
with many hardships, crossed the Rocky Mountains; 
reached on the other side the sources of the Columbia, 
and finally—following that river—the Pacific. With 
the change in political affairs in North America, the 
two chief trading companies, the Hudson’s Bay Com- 
pany and the North West Company, had passed into 
the hands of the English, and steadily maintained 
their preponderance. But formidable opposition 
against them arose in 1810 at New York in the Pa- 
cific Fur Company, whose financial and intellectual 
head was John Jacob Astor, a German by birth. A 
detailed account of this undertaking, so tremendous 
for a private citizen, is found in Washington Irving’s 
classic, ‘‘Astoria.”” For present purposes it is enough 
to know that the undertaking consisted of two con- 
temporaneous expeditions, one by sea and one by land. 
The latter was entrusted to Wilson P. Hunt of New 
Jersey (now postmaster at St. Louis). Hunt ascended 
the Missouri to the village of the Arickaras, and 
thence continued overland in southwesterly direction. 
He reached the Rockies at the northwest corner of 
the Wind River Mountains, crossed the principal 
range, found on the further side the southern main 
