The Mouth of the Columbia River.
By Harper's Weekly
EARLY in the last century vague reports were received by the Jesuits, who had reached Lake Superior, of a great river that rose near the western end of the lake, and flowed west into the Pacific. In 1775 Captain Bruno Heceta, commander of the Spanish exploring ship Santiago, sailed past what he believed to be the mouth of a river on the western coast of North America, near latitude 46°. He named it Rio de San Roque, but deemed it too insignificant to be worth exploring, and so did not enter it. Three years later the great navigator, Captain Cook, sailed along the same coast in the Resolution, but failed to note any traces of the great river. In July of the same year Captain Meares visited the coast on purpose to discover whether such a river as had been mentioned by Heceta existed or not. He discovered and named Cape Disappointment, called the insignificant inlet at its base Deception Bay, and sailed away, afterward reporting that the alleged river was merely a small inlet blocked by a sand-spit. In 1789 Captain Gray, of Boston, who was the first to bear the flag of the young republic around the world, while cruising up this coast, fancied that, when in about latitude 46°, he saw signs of being off the mouth of an immense fresh-water river, but did not have time to stop and verify his supposition. Three years later, in the spring of 1792, he again found himself on this coast, in command of the ship Columbia, with time enough on his hands to carry out his cherished scheme of searching for the river of whose existence he felt so certain. He sailed south from the Straits of Juan de Fuca, and on his way down the coast fell in with Captain George Vancouver, on his famous exploring expedition that ended in the discovery of Puget Sound. The two captains exchanged courtesies and compared notes. Captain Gray mentioned the river that he hoped to find, and Vancouver laughed at him. The latter said that he had carefully examined the entire coast for two hundred miles under the most favorable circumstances, that the line of breakers was unbroken, and that he had only noted signs of river water near an opening that appeared so insignificant that he did not deem it worthy of attention. On the following day, May 11, Captain Gray sailed the Columbia into this insignificant inlet, and discovered one of the grandest rivers in the world, which he named "Columbia," in honor of his ship. He named the extreme point of Cape Disappointment, Point Hancock, and the headland on the south side of the river, Point Adams, after the two most distinguished men of his native State. Behind Cape Disappointment he found a beautiful bay, which he named Baker's, and to the point bounding it on the east he gave the name of Chinook. Fifty years later the testimony of Captain Gray's log-book gave the noble river that he thus discovered to the United States, and moved the international boundary line three degrees north, to the Straits of Juan de Fuca. On November 7, 1805, the intrepid explorers, Lewis and Clarke, coming from the interior, reached the mouth of the Columbia, which they called by its Indian name, Oregon. In March, 1811, a company of fur-traders, sent out from New York by John Jacob Astor, founded the settlement of Astoria, near the mouth of the river, which thus became the first American settlement on the Pacific Coast. Astoria struggled for existence for three years, and then fell into the hands of the British, who changed its name to Fort George. It is comparatively but a short time ago that it again came under the American flag, and was rechristened Astoria. To-day it is a flourishing city containing several thousand inhabitants, who are very proud of their handsome Masonic Hall, their custom-house, and above all, of the immense salmon-canning business conducted by their merchants. The canning establishments are huge, unsightly structures of wood, built out over the river on piles, and in them the entire process of preparing and canning the salmon is conducted by Chinese workmen. But if these establishments are blemishes on the landscape, the fishing fleet which sails out from Astoria every evening during the season presents a most picturesque sight. The boats are small, sharp at both ends, cat-rigged, and each carries the two men necessary to manage the gill-net with which its cargo is to be secured. A favorite resort for the fishermen is in the vicinity of Pillar Rock, which rises abruptly from near the middle of the river a few miles above Astoria. From here they pursue their prey down to the mouth of the river, where it sometimes happens that they cast their nets so near the bar that the outgoing tide, rushing like a mill-race, sweeps them into the remorseless breakers. The products of their toil have found their way into every market in the world, and to-day Columbia River canned salmon commands a higher price than any other. The most notable object near the mouth of the Columbia is the Tillamook Light-house. It is built on a rock so precipitous, and rising from the midst of a tideway so terrible, that no boat may approach it closely without being dashed in pieces. To overcome these difficulties a huge derrick with a far-reaching arm raises and lowers an iron cage in which are contained the visitors or supplies that reach the light-house from the mainland. In this peculiar feature of inaccessibility this light-house stands alone in the world.