Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/65

 every production of the earth, which is drained by the waters of the new-found river, shall have yielded up its illimitable wealth to distant generations."

And to this Yankee skipper from Boston, the American, Robert Gray, more honors came in the exploration of the northwest than to any other man. He was not only the first to sail a ship through the Straits of Fuca—the discoverer of the Columbia river—but he was the first American to circumnavigate the globe under the national flag, which he did in 1790, by the way of Good Hope, trading his furs to the Chinese at Canton for a cargo of tea.

Here our record of the explorations of the northwest from the seacoast comes to a close. We have given enough to enable the reader to follow the story and see how these explorations gradually concentrated to. the point of discovering the river which drains the empire of old Oregon. The foundation of our title to the whole northwest, clear up to the Alaskan boundary, and the diplomacy in settling that title will be better understood when reading future chapters after having read this chapter through.

We may pause here for a moment and contemplate the mischances of great men—the greatest of men. While the world has accorded to Christopher Columbus the imperishable fame and honor of discovering the American continent, there can be no doubt but that other European mariners had touched on the continent of America before him. There is no doubt that the Scandinavians under the lead of Leif Ericson had crossed over to the western hemisphere more than a hundred years before Columbus was born. But they left no settlement, and made but little if any record or comment of the matter. It was a matter of no importance to them, and no one ever followed up their lead. It is conjectured that Columbus had heard of this discovery from the Icelanders whom he visited fifteen years before he sailed away from Palos into the unknown western ocean. But if so, Columbus never mentioned the fact, and there is no evidence that he had ever heard of the Scandinavian discovery.

Columbus was rightly entitled to name the land he had discovered, although he had never reached the main land, but had only set up his banner on a neighboring island. But sentiment, poetry and praise alike has for four hundred years striven to undo the great wrong to the greatest hero. The ship that first entered Oregon's great river bore his name; and the mighty river itself is a perpetual memorial to the honor of Christopher Columbus.

To Americus Vespucius, who was born at Florence, Italy, on the 9th of March, 1451. was given the honor of naming the New World. Vespucius moved from Italy to Spain in the j'ear of 1490, and made the acquaintance of Columbus before he sailed from Palos. And on the return of Columbus to Spain with the great discovery Vespucius was one of the first to greet the great discoverer. But he (Vespucius), then a merchant at Seville, made no effort to verify the report of Columbus until 1499. when he accompanied Ojeda on his expedition to America as an astronomer. Vespucius made four voyages to the New World, but he had not the chief command of these expeditions; and like Columbus died without knowing he had reached a separate continent. In a letter to the King of Portugal, in whose services he had sailed, July 18, 1500, he says: "We discovered a very large country of Asia." And, like Columbus, after giving to the world all the riches of America, he died a poor man. passing away at Seville in 1512.

But how came Vespucius to receive the great honor of naming the New