Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/276

266 by the volume of business, also, "says Chittenden, "the fur trade was of relatively insignificant proportions; but its importance and historic interest depend upon other and quite different considerations."

The "other considerations," which included the one first mentioned—the saving of Oregon to the United States—were numerous, even after deducting the fortunes which were made by the few at the expense of the many. Allowing that there were, in the service of the American fur companies in the Oregon Territory during the twenty years of their existence, 2,000 men, which is probably a fair estimate, the results of their labors are remarkable. To their presence in the country, and the protection it afforded, the various sciences of geography, natural history (animal life), botany, ethnology, meteorology, geology, and mineralogy are greatly indebted. Government expeditions, fitted out though they may be with every possible instrument and apparatus, through the very perfection of their equipment fail to effect the discoveries which the lonely hunter and trapper made in his annual wanderings.

Exploring expeditions by the government in the Pacific Northwest began about the time the fur trade period closed, in the early '40s; but before that time there were books upon the physical sciences whose authors had traveled over the far West under the escort of the fur companies, being entertained at forts and made welcome at camp and rendezvous. There was hardly a stream or lake in the Rocky-mountain region, now comprising several great states, that had not been named, and to which some incident of history attached. A trapper (American) although he could not quote Shakespeare (as some of them could), was able to make a map of the region he roamed over which the reader of explorers' reports would be glad to possess to-day. During the period between