Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 6).djvu/191

 Sir Alexander M'Kenzie, in his second overland voyage, tried to reach the western ocean by the Columbia river, and thought he had succeeded when he came out six degrees farther north, at the bottom of Puget's sound, by another river.

In 1805, the American government sent Captains Lewis and Clark, with about thirty men, including some Kentucky hunters, on an overland journey to the mouth of the Columbia. They ascended the Missouri, crossed the mountains at the source of that river, and following the course of the Columbia, reached the shores of the Pacific, where they were forced to winter. The report which they made of their expedition to the United States government created a lively sensation. north. Franchère's "six degrees farther north" is correct; but by the "bottom of Puget Sound" he must intend the northern end of Georgian Strait, the farthest portion of Vancouver Island. Mackenzie painted his name and the date—July 22, 1793—upon a rock fronting the ocean, and returned to Fort Chepewyan. The narrative of his travels appeared in 1801. He was knighted the following year, and died near Edinburgh in 1820.—]