In 1797 the Spanish government gave orders that the charts drawn up in the course of the expedition of MM. Galiano and Valdes should be published," in order that they might be in the hands of the public before those of Vancouver." However the publication did not take place till 1802; and geographers now possess the advantage of being able to compare together the charts of Vancouver, those of the Spanish navigators

for the founding a colony, and of the doubts started against the identity of this river and the Tacoutche-Tessi, or Oregan of Mackenzie. I know not whether this Oregan enters into one of the great salt-water lakes, which, according to the information afforded by Father Escalante, I have represented under the 39° and 41° of latitude. I do not decide whether or not the Oregan, like many great rivers of South America, does not force a passage through a chain of elevated mountains, and whether or not its mouth is to be found in one of the creeks between the port de la Bodega and Cape Orford; but I could have wished that a geographer, in other respects both learned and judicious, had not attempted to recognize the name of Oregan in that of Origen, which he believes to designate a river in the map of Mexico, published by Don Antonio Alzate (Geographie Mathematique, Physique, et Politique, vol. xv. p. 116 and 117). He has confounded the Spanish word Origen, the source or origin of a thing, with the Indian word Origan. The map of Alzate only marks the Rio Colorado, which receives its waters from the Rio Gila. Near the junction we read the following words: Rio Colorado ó del Norte, cuyo origen se ignora, of which the origin is unknown. The negligence with which these Spanish words are divided (they have engraved Nortecuio and Seignora) is undoubtedly the cause of this extraordinary mistake.

published by the Deposito Hydrografico of Madrid, and the Russian chart published at Petersburg in 1802, in the depôt of the maps of the charts of the emperor. This comparison is so much the more necessary, as the same capes, the same passages, and the same islands, frequently bear three or four different names; and geographical synonomy has by that means become as confused as the synonomy of cryptogameous plants has become from an analogous

cause.

At the same epoqua at which the vessels Sutil and Mericana were employed in examining, in the greatest detail, the shore between the parallels of 45° and 51°, the Count de Revillagigedó destined another expedition for higher latitudes, The mouth of the river of Martin de Aquilar had been unsuccessfully sought for in the vicinity of Cape Orford and Cape Gregory. Alexander Malaspina, in place of the famous channel de Maldonado, had only formed openings without any outlet. Galiano and Valdes had ascertained that the Strait of Fuca was merely an arm of the sea, which separates an island of more than 1700 square leagues*, that of Quadra and Vancouver from the mountainous coast of New Georgia.

*The extent of the island of Quadra and Vancouver, calculated according to the maps of Vancouver, is 1730 square leagues of 25 to the sexagesimal degree. It is the largest island to be found on this west coast of America.

There still remained doubts as to the existence of the straits, of which the discovery was attributed to admiral Fuentes or Fonte, which was supposed to be under the 53° of latitude. Cook regretted his want of ability to examine this part of the continent of New Hanover; and the assertions of Captain Colnet, an able navigator, rendered it extremely probable that the continuity of the coast was interrupted in these latitudes. To resolve a problem of such importance, the viceroy of New Spain gave orders to Lieutenant Don Jacinto Caamaño, commander of the frigate Aranzazu, to examine with the greatest care the shore from the 51° to the 56° of north latitude. M. Caamaño, whom I had the pleasure of seeing at Mexico, set sail from the port of San Blas on the 20th March, 1792; and he made a voyage of six months. He carefully surveyed the northern part of Queen Charlotte's Island, the southern coast of the Prince of Wales's Island, which he called Isla de Ulloa, the islands of Revillagigedo, of Banks (or de la Calamidad), and of Aristizabal, and the great inlet of Moniño, the mouth of which is opposite the archipelago of Pitt. The considerable number of Spanish denominations preserved by Vancouver in his charts proves that the expeditions, of which we have given a summary account, contributed in no small degree to our knowledge of a coast, which, from the 45° of latitude to Cape Douglas to the east of Cook's

Creek, is now more accurately surveyed than the most part of the coasts of Europe.

I have confined myself to the bringing together at the end of this chapter all the information which I could procure with regard to the voyages undertaken by the Spaniards, from 1553 to our own times, towards the western coast of New Spain to the north of New California. The assemblage of these materials appeared to me to be necessary in a work embracing whatever concerns the political and commercial relations of Mexico. The geographers who are eager to divide the world for the sake of facilitating the study of their science distinguish on the north-west coast an English part, a Spanish part, and a Russian part. These divisions have been made without consulting the chiefs of the different tribes who inhabit these countries! Ifthe puerile ceremonies which the Europeans call taking possession, and if astronomical observations made on a recently discovered coast could give rights of property, this portion of the new continent would be singularly pieced out and divided among the Spaniards, English, Russians, French, and Aimericans. One small island would sometimes be shared by two or three nations at once, because each might have discovered a different cape of it. The great sinuosity of the coast between the parallels of 55° and 60° embrace the successive discoveries of Gali, Bering, and Tschirekow,

1

Quadra, Cook, La Perouse, Malaspina, and Vancouver!

No European nation has yet formed a solid establishment on the immense extent of coast from Cape Mendocino to the 59° of latitude. Beyond this limit the Russian factories commence, the most part of which are scattered and distant from one another, like the factories established by European nations for these last three hundred years on the coast of Africa. The most part of these small Russian colonies have no communication with one another but by sea; and the new denominations of Russian America, or Russian possessions in the new continent, ought not to induce us to believe that the coast of the basin of Bering, the peninsula Alaska, or the country of the Tschugatschi, have become Russian provinces, in the sense which we give to this word speaking of the Spanish provinces of Sonora or New Biscay.

The western coast of America affords the only example of a shore of 1900 leagues in length, inhabited by one European nation. The Spaniards, as we have already indicated in the commencement of this work*, have formed establishments from fort Maullin in Chili to S. Francis in New California. To the north of the parallel of 38° succeed independent Indian tribes. It is

* See vol. i. p. 6.