Page:A History of the Pacific Northwest.djvu/44

 near and remote. Therefore, in a sense, Vancouver's instructions represent a transition from the earlier idea of finding a strait through which ships might sail from Pacific to Atlantic, to the later idea of finding a practicable line of communication, such as a river or rivers, across the continent.

The Columbia River. On Vancouver's map one such possibility is indicated in the delineation of a great river which enters the Pacific just above the 46th parallel and which was traced for the distance of about one hundred miles inland. The name it bears is Columbia River. This is the first time it has appeared on a map of the coast. It was not, however, a discovery of the British geographer, but of a plain Yankee skipper and it is to be credited to the maritime fur trade just as are the discoveries of Fuca's Strait and Queen Charlotte's Island.

John Ledyard. The American interest in the Northwest Coast trade possibly sprang also from the reports of Cook's voyage. John Ledyard of Hartford, Connecticut, was a corporal on Cook's flagship. In 1783 Ledyard returned to the United States and promptly published a small volume giving an account of Cook's voyage. He had been so deeply impressed with the chance for gain in a fur trade between the Northwest Coast and Canton that he laboured inces-