Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/409



JOURNAL OF ALEXANDER Ross 367

Mr. Ross first left his paternal home in Scotland in 1804, from which it may be estimated that he was more than sixty years of age when completing these books, which, from their context, evidently were based upon some journal or memoranda then at hand. There has been and probably always will be a question as to how closely he followed any such original memoranda and how much he drew from memory. The publication of this journal is therefore valuable to the extent that it assists in answering that question, and it should be read in immediate comparison with the first 160 pages of Vol. II. of "Fur Hunt- ers of the Far West," Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1855. It may be noted also that the preface of Mr. Ross' first book was dated in 1846 and that pages 154-5 of Vol. II. of his "Fur Hunters," contains a footnote suggesting that at least a part of it had been written much earlier.

The original of this journal is to be found in the possession of the Hudson's Bay Company at their head office on Lime street, London, but this text has been carefully copied from an original copy belonging to the Ayers Collection in the New- berry Library at Chicago, 111. ; that original copy was made by Miss Agnes C. Laut in preparation for writing her "Con- quest of the Great Northwest," and was by her transferred to the Newberry Library. To the writer of these notes, it seems possible that this is not the journal that Mr. Ross had when writing his books and that he had other papers than those formally turned over to the Hudson's Bay Company. This suggestion is based upon the fact that other personal journals have been found among the family archives of contemporaneous fur traders, also upon other deductions. The reader will regret that seemingly Miss Laut did not find it necessary to copy the entire text of the original in the H, B. Co. House at London.

Referring to the journal itself it will be found that from Eddy, in Montana, Mr. Ross' party followed very closely the present route of the Northern Pacific Railway as far as Missoula, which is at the mouth of Hell Gate Canyon and River (Porte d'lnfer, as the French half-breeds first