Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/311

Rh Grave, Lieut. R.N., I wrote you at some length, and then mentioned that I had shipped in the Sandwich Islands, on board the Sarah of London, a South Sea-man, bound for London direct, the whole of my California collection. This vessel sailed from the Island of Woahoo on the 8th of September. Since I wrote to you, the season being winter, I have little new to communicate; during the interval I have made a journey, as I proposed, North of the Columbia, to New Georgia, and a most labourious one it was. My object was to determine the position of the Head Lands on the coast, and the culminating points of the many prodigiously high snowy peaks of the Interior, their altitudes, etc., and as I was favoured with exceedingly fine clear weather, this was effected much to my satisfaction. On this excursion I secured about two hundred species of Mosses, but as I am rather ignorant of this tribe, there may be a few more or less; certain it is, however, that there are many fine kinds that are totally unknown to me; and perhaps even you may find some of them new. I have also some interesting Fuci from Puget's Sound, collected on the same journey, three of which are decidedly not in Mr. Turner's work, and very noble species they are. I have bespoken the services of all the Captains on the North-West coast, to bring me all sorts of sea-weeds, simply coiled up, dried and put in a bag". This winter has been drier, but far more severe than the preceding season. The Columbia was closed with ice for four weeks at Menzies' Island, where it rather exceeds a mile in breadth, the thermometer indicating 22° of Fahrenheit, which is bitterly cold for the shores of the Pacific in the parallel of 45°. This gave me an excellent opportunity of multiplying my astronomical observations, on the angular distance between the moon's limb and the sun; the planets Venus, Mercury, Saturn, and Mars, and the fixed stars; not less than eight thousand observations in about six hundred sets, separately computed for the purpose of ascertaining the absolute longitude of Fort Vancouver. Besides, I observed the beautiful eclipse of the moon on the night of January the 5th of this year, with many of the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites. Indeed, my whole skill was exerted on these operations, in order to obtain their position with the greatest accuracy, as all my chronometric longitudes are reduced to that meridian. I merely mention these things that you may not tax me with idleness, a character with which I am charged by the Londoners, and perhaps more deservedly in that great metropolis than elsewhere. I hope that you have not finished the fine Order Coniferœ in the Flora Boreali-Americana, that you may include the Pines discovered in my late journeys, viz., Pinus venusta, Sabini, and grandis.

I quitted the ocean on the 19th of March, and followed the course of the river to this spot, picking up a few of the early-flowering plants, and better specimens of others which I had already possessed: among them are some novel species of Platyspermum, Thysanocarpus, and