THE NORTHERN PACIFIC ROUTE. 169 
river that is fed from the melting snows on the mountains of most of 
the northwestern part of this country and a large part of the mountain 
region of Canada. 
Although the Northern Pacific crosses Columbia River only a few 
miles above the mouth of Snake River, the junction of these two 
streams can not be readily seen from the train, but the Oregon- 
Washington Railroad & Navigation Co.’s bridge which crosses just 
below the Snake is clearly visible. When the traveler reaches this 
point in his westward journey he has been out of St. Paul only 48 
or 50 hours, but when Lewis and Clark camped at the mouth of the 
Snake in October, 1805, they had been gone from St. Louis 18 months. 
At that time the ownership of Oregon Territory was uncertain and 
' most of the men, if not the leaders themselves, believed that they 
were on foreign soil, as many entries in their journals refer to what 
they expected to do when they returned to the United States. 
The first white man to explore the Columbia above the mouth of 
the Yakima (yak’i-ma), which enters a few miles west of Kenne- 
wick, was David Thompson, who made a trip down the river from 
Spokane in the year 1811. 
Soon after passing Kennewick, a thriving town grown up in the 
center of a rich irrigated district on the south side of 
the river, the train crosses a branch line of the 
Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Co. that 
runs up the valley of Yakima River as far as North 
Kennewick. 
Elevation 372 feet. 
Population 1,219. 
St. Paul 1,654 miles. 
Yakima. 
After the dull, monotonous sagebrush plain above Pasco, the 
orchards and fields of green alfalfa are a pleasing sight. The fields 
first seen are those on the lowest bottom of the river, 
but as the railway reaches Vista it is running on a 
second terrace which is also irrigated and under a 
high state of cultivation. 
Vista. 
Elevation 576 feet. 
St. Paul 1,659 miles. 
expedition under Capt. Vancouver going 
north to explore Puget Sound. Gray in- 
formed the commander of one of these 
vessels of his belief that a large river 
arver to th in 1778, was employed, 
t was soon abandoned and Columbia 
came into general use. 
Gray’s discovery and the careful and 
Lol 
entered the ocean near latitude 46°, but 
as the English captain had just passed 
that point in clear weather and had seen 
no indication of a river he gave no cre- 
dence to Gray’s report. 
Gray persisted in his search and was 
rewarded by finding the river’s mouth as 
he had expected and by sailing over the 
bar on May 11, 1792. Gray named 
river after his ship, and although for a 
time the name Oregon, given by Jonathan 
® 
accurate entry in his log book of the cir- 
umstances connected with it were 
largely instrumental in later deciding in 
favor of the United States the controversy 
with Great Britain over the ownership of 
Oregon Territory. Gray’s services to his 
country are commemorated by the names 
of Grays Bay and Grays Point, on the 
river nearly opposite Astoria, and of 
Grays Harbor, a commodious bay on the 
Washington coast farther north. 
i) 
