1766. j OREGON, OR RIVER OF THE WEST. 143 



down that river, to the place where it is said to empty itself, near 

 the Straits of Anian." 



From these declarations, it has been supposed, by many, that 

 Carver was the first to make known to the world the existence of 

 the great stream since discovered, and named the Columbia, which 

 drains nearly the whole region, on the Pacific side of America, 

 between the 40th and the 54th parallels of latitude ; and that stream 

 is, in consequence, frequently called the Oregon. On examining 

 the journal of the traveller, however, we find no further mention 

 of, or allusion to, his river than is contained in the following pas- 

 sages : " From these nations, [called by him the Naudowessies, 

 the Assinipoils, and the Kittistinoes,] together with my own obser- 

 vations, I have learned that the four most capital rivers on the 

 continent of North America — viz., the St. Lawrence, the Missis- 

 sippi, the River Bourbon, and the Oregon, or River of the West, (as 

 I hinted in my introduction) — have their sources in the same 

 neighborhood. The waters of the three former are within thirty 

 miles of each other ; the latter, however, is rather farther west. 

 This shows that these parts are the highest in North America ; and 

 it is an instance not to be paralleled in the other three quarters of 

 the world, that four rivers of such magnitude should take their rise 

 together, and each, after running separate courses, discharge their 

 waters into different oceans, at the distance of two thousand miles 

 from their sources ; for, in their passage from this spot to the Bay 

 of St. Lawrence east, to the Bay of Mexico south, to Hudson's 

 Bay north, and to the bay at the Straits of Anian west, each of 

 these traverse upwards of two thousand miles." The elevated part, 

 to which Carver here alludes, is no otherwise described by him than 

 as being near the Shining Mountains, " which begin at Mexico, and, 

 continuing northward, on the back, or to the east, of California, 

 separate the waters of those numerous rivers that fall into the Gulf 

 of Mexico or the Gulf of California. From thence, continuing 

 their course still northward, between the sources of the Mississippi 

 and the rivers that run into the South Sea, they appear to end in 

 about 47 or 48 degrees of north latitude, where a number of rivers 

 arise, and empty themselves either into the South Sea, into Hud- 

 son's Bay, or into the waters that communicate between these 

 two seas." 



In the preceding extracts from Carver's book, embracing all that 

 he has said respecting his Oregon, or Great River of the West, there 

 is certainly nothing calculated to establish the identity of the stream, 



