Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/42



ing to  the  westward. Almost as  much  as  gold-pro- ducino; mountams  the  world  wanted  mter-oceanic communication. From Patagonia,  northward,  nearly to the  land's  end,  the  seaboard  had  been  searched  in vain  for  a  passage ;  only  the  part  between  Hudson bay and  the  Pacific  remaining  yet  unexplored. In 1719 two  vessels,  the  Albany  Frigate,  Captain  George Barlow, and  the  Discovery,  Captain  David  Vaughn, were fitted  out  for  the  purpose  of  examining  the the western  side  of  Hudson  bay,  and  passing thence througrh  the  strait  of  Anian  into  the  Pacific. This strait,  the  discover}'^  of  which  was  so  eagerly  de- sired, was believed  to  exist ;  it  was  even  laid  down  in charts,  and  there  were  some  who  said  that  they  had seen it,  others  that  they  had  entered  it,  though all the  while  it  existed  only  in  imagination. James Knight was  given  command  of  the  expedition,  and was "with  the  first  opportunity  of  wind  and weather,  to  depart  from  Gravesend  on  his  intended voyage,  and  by  God's  permission,  to  find  out  the strait  of  Anian,  in  order  to  discover  gold  and other  valuable  commodities  to  the  northward." Mr Knight entered  upon  the  task  with  enthusiam,  though then eighty  years  of  age,  and  "  procured,  and  took with  him  some  large  iron-bound  chests  to  hold  gold- dust  and  other  valuables,  which  he  fondly  flattered himself  were  to  be  found  in  those  parts." Not hear- ing from the  expedition,  many  conjectured,  as  Samuel Hearne remarks,  "that  Messrs  Knight  and  Barlow had  found  that  passage,  and  had  gone  through  it  into the  South  Sea  by  the  way  of  California,"  and  it  was not known  until  fifty  years  later,  when  Hearne  was undertaking his  Coppermine  river  expedition,  that they had  not  found  the  Anian  strait,  and  had  not filled their  iron-bound  chests  with  the  gold  of  Califor- nia, but had  all  been  lost  in  Hudson  bay.

The Shining  Mountains — as  the  Sierra  Nevada and Cascade  Range  were  called  by  those  who  wrote geography a  hundred  years  ago — were  deemed  from