Geyer, Ohas. A. 

 1844, April 6th 

 Fort Colville on the Columbia. 



TRANSLATION 



Fort Colville at the Columbia on the confluence 

 of the Clark River, April 6, 1844. 



Dear Doctor: 



This is the last opportunity I have to write to you. A letter dated the 6th 

 or 8th may have been received by you from Honolulu. This via Columbia proper above 

 the Rocky Mountains to the Lake of the Woods, Lake Superior and Montreal or Halifax — 

 The winter has not been very cold here, but with much snow, but what they call here 

 little snow and the Vegetation began to break out already during the first weeks in 

 March ... Drummondi or Douglas were the first to be in bloom, next came a yellow 

 Liliana with a pendulous flower similar to Eryth. divaricata or ^ Claytonia, one 

 of the same, but bulbous, on ö' 1 Polemonium?, several small and large bulbous 

 Umbiliffereae with white, golden and purple flowers, furthermore a blooming 

 beautiful Dodecatheon, Saxifr. granulata, Hedyotis with slender somewhat dentate 

 leaves, a beautiful Palmoria (similar to the sibirica), several Ceraeus, one small- 



leaved Collinia, Arabis aurea?, one Leavenworthia, quite lovely and Wyethia 



helianthoides cover almost all sunny mountain bluffs and the quite frequent Berberis 

 Aquifolium will bloom in a few days ... Juniperus andina is common in the mountains 



near the waterfalls of the Columbia, but I did not see any since I left Platte 



The bluffs or cliffs of the Columbia are here still about 1^00 to 2000 feet above 

 sea level, but have few trees. ... 



I wrote you that Fremont has returned via California. The immigrants found 

 it better to change from the unhealthy climate of Wohlmut Valley to the richer and 

 raore beautiful of California; people who had been there more than 20 times assure me 

 "it is worth an effort to go there".— They also talk about Oregon and Missouri and 

 that it is just terrible there. Officers of the Hudson Co. told me that all over the 

 place cattle can be found in California, is breeding well and supposed to be the 

 descendants of two cows and one bull which Commodore Anson (a Britisher) set on land 

 about 60 years ago. About 12 years ago there were so many that the people had to 

 kill masses of them to preserve the grass. ...Hemp, iron and wood, all three 

 together in one place can sometimes become the wealth of the nation. The Chinese 

 need ships and they are not only the ones who lack wood to build ships. In such a 



mess.the government should take over and not the squattersl The Columbia is no 



good as a travel road, it is füll of eddies and waterfalls and nobody would dare 

 to go on it before making his last will and testament. It is also impossible to 

 build a road into the interior from the coast even if one would make a tunnel 

 through the blue mountains, the rest can be done only by pack animals. The wood 



