Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/207

Rh brought out by Lieutenant G. W. Totten of the navy, in March 1851, and afterward commanded by William Ball.

The Columbia supplied a great deficiency in communication with California and the east, though Oregon was still forced to be content with a monthly mail, while California had one twice a month. The postmaster-general's direction that Astoria should be made a distributing office was a blunder that the delegate failed to rectify. Owing to the lack of navigation by steamers on the rivers, Astoria was but a remove nearer than San Francisco, and while not quite so inaccessible as the mouth of the Klamath, was nearly so. When the post-routes were advertised, no bids were offered for the Astoria route, and when the mail for the interior was left at that place a special effort must be made to bring it to Portland.

Troubled by reason of this isolation, the people of Oregon had asked over and over for increased mail facilities, and as one of the ways of obtaining them, and also of increasing their commercial opportunities, had prayed congress to order a survey of the coast, its bays and river entrances. Almost immediately