Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/92

66 We have said that there was one negative discovery—that of Meares—and two positive ones. Gray's was one of the two, and that of Broughton, in command of the Chatham accompanying Vancouver, was the other.

On the 20th of May, the Columbia Rediviva—a most auspicious name—bade adieu to the scene of her glory, and with the Stars and Stripes floating in triumph at her mizzen-mast, turned northward. Again the American captain encountered Vancouver and narrated to him his discovery of the Columbia. With deep chagrin at his own failure in the two most important objects of discovery in his voyage, the British commander directed Broughton to return to latitude 46 degrees 10 minutes, enter the river, and proceed as far up as time allowed.

Accordingly, on October 21st, the companion ships parted at the mouth of the River, the Discovery proceeding to Monterey, while the Chatham crossed the bar, described by Broughton as very bad, and endeavoured to ascend the bay that stretched out beautiful and broad before them. But finding the channel intricate and soundings variable, the lieutenant deemed it advisable to leave the ship at a point which must have been about twenty miles from the ocean, and to proceed thence in the cutter.

There is one thing observable in Vancouver's account of this expedition of Broughton, and that is extreme solicitude to establish these two propositions:—first, that the lower part of the Columbia is a bay and that its true mouth is at a point above that reached by Gray; and second, that the River is much smaller than it really is. It is hard to reconcile the language