Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 11.djvu/52

 4 6 Frederick V. Holman Ruddock's party "then pursuing the same direction across the upper branches of the Rio Colarado of California, reached Lake Timpanagos, which is intersected by the 426. parallel of latitude, the boundary between the United States of America and the United States of Mexico. This lake is the principal source of the river Timpanagos, the Multnomah of Lewis and Clarke. They then followed the course of this river to its junction with the Columbia, and reached the mouth of the Columbia on the first day of August, completing the journey from the Council Bluffs in seventy-nine days. "Many geographers have placed the Lake Timpanagos in latitude 40, but they have obviously confounded it with the Lake Theguayo, which extends from 39 40', to 41 °, and from which it is separated by a neck or peninsula; the two lakes approaching in one direction as near as 20 miles. "The river Multnomah, the great Southern tributary of the Columbia, of which, heretofore, so little has been known, is represented as navigable for any vessels which can enter the Columbia, for a distance of one hundred and fifty miles from its junction with the Columbia, where it is obstructed by a rapid. At the distance of about seventy miles, it receives the Clatmus [Clackamas], a considerable river from the East, and, at the distance of the eighty miles, it receives the Callapoio, a large river, which has its sources near the ocean, and South of latitude 42. "From its first rapid to the Lake Timpanagos, the distance is about three hundred and twenty-five miles, making the whole distance from that source to the Columbia, four hundred and seventy-five miles. Throughout the whole length it is repre- sented as navigable for vessels of eight feet draught at certain seasons of the year, no rapid (and there are several), being worse than the rapid of the Ohio at Louisville. "The other branches of the Multnomah or Timpanagos interlock with the branches of Lewis's river." Ruddock was a good and circumstantial liar.