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structed a fort, Astoria, and were ready to ascend the river to begin the fur trade in regions previously visited by Thompson.

Commercial strategy and the Columbia. In the development of the western fur trade of the United States a natural development, after Lewis and Clark's journey, would have been to carry that trade into the uniquely rich beaver and otter regions of the upper Missouri, thence across into the mountain country where multitudes of streams flow westward to form the Columbia, and finally along the Columbia to the sea. This doubtless would have been the course of evolution, had not commercial strategy seemed to demand the prompt occupation by Americans of the mouth of the Columbia. IMackenzie had urged the importance of such an occupation, from the Canadian point of view, in 1801. The Northwest Company, fearing that the Lewis and Clark exploration boded an American occupation, were straining every effort to anticipate the Americans. Under the circumstances, it would not do to allow many years to pass, while trade was laboriously pushing its way w^estward across the Rockies and down the Columbia, before occupying the dominating position at the mouth of the great river itself.

This was the reasoning of Mr. John Jacob Astor, who was one of the most far-sighted and statesmanlike among the American merchants of the day.

Astor had been engaged in a world trade, from New York, for a quarter of a century. He early began to