Page:Oregon, her history, her great men, her literature.djvu/317

316 to stories such as the shipwreck that enabled Chief Multnomah, in "The Bridge of the Gods," to find his cultured Hindu wife, the gifted mother of Wallula, the Indian princess. But while these accounts of piracy have not been established as historical, and stories of stranded ships have come down to us merely as myths and legends, it is known that there were numerous prehistoric shipwrecks along the Oregon Coast. Among these was the wreck of the "Beeswax Ship."

Wreck of the "Beeswax Ship." Since the first appearance of white men in Oregon to the present time, beeswax has been found along the ocean beach near the Nahelem River. This being the only known locality where beeswax can be obtained after this manner, the early settlers could not understand how it came there. Because they could not account for its presence, they began to think they were mistaken, and that it was not beeswax, but a mineral closely resembling beeswax. Also the fact that the wax, some of which had been whitened by the sun, bore evidences of having been disturbed by drifting sands that wore and melted it into