Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/431

Rh for humanity dawn upon the world. America, with her new role in the world's affairs, political and industrial, has during the last five years added immensely to the revelation of what was involved in the voyage of Columbus. So, on a lesser scale, but yet with grand import, is the Lewis and Clark exploration working out its train of consequences. Its first effect is shown in a series of noteworthy government explorations under Long, Pike, Dunbar, Freeman, and others. These traced the courses of the main western streams from the Red River of the South to the Red River of the North. By them the map of Louisiana territory was completed. Most naturally were these the sequel to the complete success of Lewis. and Clark. Coues thus characterizes their work of exploration:

"The continental divide was surmounted in three different places, many miles apart. The actual travel by land and water, including various side trips, amounted to about one third the circumference of the globe. This cost but one life, and was done without another serious casualty, though often with great hardship, sometimes much suffering and occasional imminent peril. * * * The story of this adventure stands easily first and alone. This is our national epic of exploration."

While our title to the Oregon region was in question and our claim to the Pacific Northwest was disputed by England, it was customary to name the Lewis and Clark expedition as one of four or five links in the chain of our right. The list comprised generally the following: The discovery of the Columbia River by Capt. Robert Gray; the Lewis and Clark expedition; the founding of Astoria; the restitution of Astoria in 1818, involving an acknowledgment of our possession of the region; the transfer to us of the rights of Spain to the Northwest coast in the treaty of 1819. But were these events equally and inde-