Page:Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition (1905).djvu/9

 absence. Upon Gray’s return to Nootka sound, Kendrick proceeded to the Sandwich Islands and opened a trade with the natives in sandalwood. There he was killed by the islanders in 1793.

Gray, on his return voyage up the Coast in 1791, had, at a certain point, noticed what he thought to be a large river, or rather the mouth of one. In 1792, voyaging southward, he confirmed his previous impression by crossing the rather dangerous bar and sailing far enough up the stream to determine the question. To the mighty river

he gave the name Columbia, after his vessel, and as such the stream will be known through all time. It will be noted that this discovery was just 300 years after Columbus had discovered America, and in naming the river the Columbia Gray was really honoring the great discoverer himself. The Spaniard Heceta had seen, as a matter of fact, the mouth of the Columbia in 1775, and he called the presumptive stream the Saint Roque; Meares had seen it in 1788 when he anchored there and named Cape Disappointment, and Vancouver, in 1792, also saw