Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/264

232 wharves of Astoria and Portland. The present, therefore, seems a fitting time to hark back to the years of exploration, discovery and first survey of the mouth of the Columbia River ; and in this connection it is possible to present for the first time in print the log of the vessel in which the first survey was made.

For a clearer understanding by the many readers not familiar with topographical conditions at the mouth of the Columbia it is well to state that there are now two lighthouses on Cape Disappointment (Cape Hancock); the northerly and westerly, called North Head Light, and the southerly, which overlooks the river's mouth, called Canby Light. These two lights are less than two miles apart in an air line, but are not visible to each other because of the longer curvature of the rugged shore line and intervening headlands. Near to Canby Light there is a low neck or isthmus across which the ocean is visible from Baker's Bay inside the Cape. From off Canby Light westerly lies a broad bar of sand known as Peacock Spit, so named because of the loss there in 1841 of the sloop-of-war Peacock, of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, under Lieut. Charles Wilkes. From the isthmus into the ocean and across this spit has been built the North Jetty, between one and two miles in length.

Five miles southeast from Canby Light lies Point Adams, which is now more popularly called Fort Stevens. This point is low and sandy and in former years trees and brush grew upon it close to its extreme end, and hence by Heceta it was designated as Capo Frondoso, or the Leafy Cape. From Point Adams into the ocean extends Clatsop Spit, and over this spit has been built the South Jetty, nearly eight miles long.

When first known to pilots the crest or top of the bar extended from Canby Light to Point Adams. At the present time the crest of the bar would be just beyond the two jetties about three miles further out, the jetties at their outer ends being about two miles apart.