Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/234

 rived at the Columbia in October, 1835, explored the country and returned to the United States to make a report on his mission.

On November 11, 1835, Mr. Forsyth, Secretary of Foreign Affairs at Washington, commissioned Mr. Slacum of the United States Navy, to proceed to Oregon Territory and examine the state of the existing settlements, their population, the sentiment of the inhabitants toward the United States, Russia and England, and to collect finally, all the information, political, statistical and geographic, which might seem to be of interest to the government. Mr. Slacum left San Bias October 10, 1836, and arrived in the Columbia river December 22. On March 26, following, he addressed his report to the Cabinet at Washington. Slacum's voyage was made at the expense of the government, and cost thirty thousand francs.

In 1838, a company from Saint Louis, Missouri, sent Messrs. Johnson and Giger to the Columbia to explore the territory of Oregon, and make a survey of the commercial enterprises that might be undertaken there. In August of the same year, a society was formed at Boston, under the name of the Oregon Provisional Emigration Society; it is still publishing a periodical called The Oregonian. Its object is not only to instruct the Indians and to teach them husbandry and the mechanical arts, but also to aid emigration and the settlement of families from the United States in the disputed territory, to induce them to take up agriculture, salmon fishing, silk culture, the cultivation of hemp and flax, and commerce in lumber and furs. All the expenses of the society are divided