48 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



Coast Chain, where Tort Vancouver and the "*,Yaiahmutti 

 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) ' ' is situated," 

 he thought he recognised in the word ignora the name of 

 Oregon. (See my Essai politique sur ia Nouvelle Espagne, 

 T. ii. p. 314). 



The rocks 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 

 14540 French or 15500 English feet above the level of 

 the sea. The height of this Coast Chain, or Range, far 

 exceeds, therefore, that of the Rocky Mountains. " During 

 a journey of eight months', duration which was made along 

 the Maritime Alps," says Captain Fremont, in his Report, 

 p. 274, "we had snowy peaks always in view; we had 

 surmounted the Rocky Mountains by the South Pass at an 

 elevation of 7027 (7490 E.) feet, but we found the passes 

 of the Maritime Alps, which are divided into several parallel 

 ranges, more than 2000 feet higher/' therefore, only about 

 1170feet 1247E.) belowthe summit of Etna. It is extremely 



