stands connected with its maritime enterprise and adventure, and with its naval and geographical romance. It forms an epitome of the world from the beginning to 1542. Especially does it prove to the student how the exploration of our continent tried the courage, tested the endurance, baffled the skill and dissipated the fortunes of some of the noblest of men.

OREGON

THE ORIGIN AND MEANING OF THE NAME

Captain Jonathan Carver, the relation of whose "Travels throughout the Interior Parts of North America" was first published in 1778, mentions "the River OREGAN (on another page Oregon), or the River of the West, that falls into the Pacific Ocean at the Straits of Annian." No earlier authority for this name in either form has been discovered. Three or four explanations of it have been offered, no one of which is supported by a particle of historical evidence, or by intrinsic probability. The derivation from "Orejones," a nickname given by the Spanish to the Incas of Peru, and afterwards to Indians of Brazil and to others in Coahuila-because they perforated and distended the lobes of their ears -scarcely deserves consideration. There is no nation on the Columbia River or its affluents to which such an epithet is peculiarly appropriate; but if there were any such "big eared" tribe in that region, and if we could overlook the extreme improbability of the transfer of such a nickname from the people to the river, and of its conversion from plural to singular-and if the corruption of "Orejones" to "Oregon" (Spanish j to English g hard) can be supposed possible—yet how could such a name come to Carver's knowledge among the Sioux and Algonkins of the Northwest? Certainly not from Indians, for in no instance have Indians been known to adopt geographical or tribal names given by Europeans, or derived from a foreign language.

Equally fanciful is the explanation-first offered, I believe, in Darby's Gazeteer, 1827 - which derives the name from the Spanish orégano, "wild marjoram." In the first place, the plant referred to, commonly called "sage brush" or "wormwood," is not an Origanum (Spanish orégano), but an Artemisia; in the second place, this plant, though abundant on the plains, does not grow near the Pacific coast; and finally, there is no evidence that the Columbia River or the Oregon country was known to the Spanish at the date of Carver's travels, or that Spaniards ever used the name "Oregan" or "Oregon" for either river or country.

The name is not Spanish, nor was it, as Mr. Robert Greenhow believed, "invented by Carver." It comes from an Indian language,

with which Carver had been for many years somewhat familiar, and it is the accurate translation into that language of the name by which, as Carver had reasons for believing, "the Great River of the West" was designated by the tribes that lived near it. It is the Mohegan wauregan, the Abnaki ourighen, the Delaware wuliexen, the Massachusetts wunnegan, signifying in all dialects "good," "fair," "fine." In a river name it denotes sometimes a fair and beautiful-more often a gentle, easily navigable-stream, unbroken by falls. The Iroquois Oheeyo has the same meaning. The English corrupted the one name to "Alleghany," the other to "Ohio. "Olighin (or Aleghin) sipou," as it is written by La Metairie, the companion of La Salle, was the Algonkin name of the river which the Senecas called "Oheeyo gähunda," and both names were translated by the French in "la belle Rivière.

Fifteen years before Carver began his travels Le Page du Pratz published (in the Journal Oeconomique, September, 1751) a story told him by a Yazoo Indian, named Moncacht-apé, of his discovery of a river that flowed westward to the "Great Water," through the country of a nation called "Otters" (les Loutres). The river was broad and rapid, and its waters were so fine and clear that these Indians named it in their language "la belle Rivière." An English translation of this story appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for September, 1753. It was reproduced by Le Page du Pratz in 1758 in his Histoire de la Louisiane (vol. iii, pp. 102-130), which was translated into English in 1763. The "Belle Rivière" of the West and the "Nation des Loutres " appear on Bailly d'Engel's map of North America, 1764. The relation of Moncacht-apé seemed to confirm information previously obtained from northern Indians concerning the "River of the West." D'Anville, on his map of North America, published in 1746, laid down a river issuing from the Lake of the Woods, designating it as "Grande Rivière qui court à l'Ouest, découverte depuis peu de temps par le Sauvage Ochagac." A rude map traced by this Ochagac (or Ochagach) indicated a route to this river through the country of the Sioux-the "Naudowessies" of Carver. These facts must have been well known to Carver when he set out in 1766, hoping to find his way to the headwaters of the River of the West, and to follow its course to the Pacific Ocean or the "Straits of Annian." The Indians through whose countries he traveled all spoke either Sioux or Algonkin dialects. When questioning them about the "Fair River" of the West, he must necessarily translate its name into an Algonkin or a Sioux language. Neither of his interpreters (one was a Mohawk, the other a French

Canadian) understood the Sioux, but the Algonkin designation of a "Fair River"-Waurégan, Ourighen, or Alleghany, according to local dialect-must have been well known to them and to Carver himself.

He did not succeed in opening a way to the Pacific, or even in dis covering the "Heads of the River of the West," but he did succeed in giving to the undiscovered river, and to the vast territory it was supposed to traverse, and finally to a State in the American Union an excellent name, which he did not "invent," but which he honestly accepted as the equivalent of that by which the "Nation of Otters" designated in their unknown language their "Belle Rivière."

J. HAMMOND TRUMBULL

efforts which have been made to exalt the reputation of Dr. Franklin, at the expense of his colleagues. A thorough and patient investigation of the transactions connected with the negotiations of 82 and -83, as far as I have been able to discover them and likewise of the communications to Congress from the French Ministers at Philadelphia, contained in the secret journals of Congress, has resulted in impressing on my own mind an entire conviction that the views taken by Messrs. Adams and Jay of the policy of the French Court, were well founded. I have found, in an old newspaper, an extract from a letter addressed by Count Montmorin, French Ambassador at Madrid, while my Father was at that Court, to Count Vergennes, that has a bearing on this subject. In it Montmorin tells Vergennes that "His most Christian Majesty could not afford his Catholic Majesty a greater proof of his attachment, than in employing his influence in the United States to divert their views from the navigation of the Mississippi." The letter has every appearance of authenticity, but how and by what authority it became public I do not know.

In the motives which prompt this letter, and in the long and uninterrupted friendship that subsisted between our Fathers, you will I trust find an apology for the liberty I take in addressing you. I am now engaged in preparing for the press a memoir of my Father's life. In this work the negotiation of -83 will, of course, hold a prominent place. I find from a letter of Judge Peters, who was in Congress in -82 and -83, that an attempt was made in that body to pass a vote of censure on my Father for having violated his instructions in that negotiation. My Father also on several occasions mentioned the fact, yet both the public and secret Journals of Congress are silent on the subject. In what manner the attempt was made, and how it was defeated, I am ignorant. I suppose, but have never understood, that Mr. Adams was included in the proposed vote of censure. Thinking it probable that you may be acquainted with the particulars of this affair, permit me to ask the favor of you to give me such information respecting it, as in your opinion it may not be improper to com- But should propriety permit you to municate. afford me any aid in explaining and You are doubtless aware of the recent vindicating the course pursued by our

It is not improbable, from the peculiar opportunities you have enjoyed, that you may have derived information respecting both this document and also the real intentions of the French Cabinet, from sources not accessible to me. I am, however, very sensible that the nature of these sources may have been such as to limit your communications.