Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/358

342 The Oregon migrations effected at one sweep a two thousand-mile extension of the Aryan movement westward in the occupation of the north temperate zone "a far-flung': outpost of occupation and settlement. To appreciate the boldness, intrepidity and consummate effectiveness of such pioneering we have but to note that no previous extension had compassed one-fourth this distance. Nor were the conditions in this instance easy. One continuous stretch of Indian country infested with most formidable predatory tribes had to be passed through. Conditions approximating those of a desert had to be faced during a large part of the migration. There were swift rivers to ford or ferry, and three mountain ranges to scale. Only one form of the usual difficulties of pioneer road-making did not appear. There were no extensive forests to penetrate except on the ridges of the Blue and the Cascade Mountains.

The settlements of the blue grass region of Kentucky, and the Nashville district, in Western Tennessee, were, when first made, the most isolated from the main body of the American people. Yet, these had less than a fourhundred mile stretch between them and the settled region of the Atlantic slope. No other outward movement of Aryan people ever covered anything like the distance made by the Oregon pioneers on the Oregon trail. Measured by the sea voyage, the Oregon settlements were a leap of seventeen thousand miles.

Though the Oregon pioneers traced the first trail across the continent, adapting for sections of it the lines of travel of fur trading expeditions; yet, were it not for the title of Francis Parkman's narrative (which, however, has only the slightest references to anything pertaining to its title), I am not sure but that the very name would have been lost to all except Oregonians. The meagerness of Parkman's presentation of the transconti-