Oregon and Eldorado

and running into it with all sails set, between the breakers, he anchored at one o'clock in a large river of fresh water, ten miles above its mouth. At this spot he remained three days, engaged in trading with the natives, and filling his casks with water; and then sailed up the river about twelve miles along its northern shore, where, finding that he could proceed no farther from having taken the wrong channel, he again came to anchor. On the 20th, he recrossed the bar at the mouth of the river, and regained the Pacific.

On leaving the river, Gray gave it the name of his ship, the Columbia, which it still bears. He called the southern point of land, at the entrance, Cape Adams; and the northern, Cape Hancock. The former of these names retains its place in the maps, the latter does not; the promontory being known as Cape Disappointment,--a name it received from Lieut. Meares, an English navigator, who, like Capt. Gray, judged from appearances that there was the outlet of a river at that point, but fai