LEWIS AND CLARK, AMERICAN EXPLORERS IN THE OREGON COUNTRY [Sidenote: =A vast unexplored country=] [Sidenote: =Gray visits the Pacific=] =118. Discovery of the Columbia River.= The purchase of the Louisiana territory by Jefferson opened up a great new field for settlers. It was necessary to know something about the new territory. It was a vast unexplored country stretching from the Mississippi River to the Rockies. The Pacific shore had already been visited by explorers. Boston merchants had sent Captain Robert Gray to the Pacific coast to buy furs of the Indians. He did not try to find an overland route, but sailed around South America and up the coast to Vancouver Island, where he obtained a rich cargo of furs. He then made his way across the Pacific to China, and came back to Boston by way of the Cape of Good Hope--the first American to carry the Stars and Stripes around the world. [Sidenote: =Discovers the mouth of the Columbia=] On a second voyage to the same region, in the good ship _Columbia_, Gray discovered the mouth of a great river (1792). Up this river he went for nearly thirty miles, probably the first white man to sail upon its waters. Captain Gray named the river the Columbia after his vessel. The Indians had called it the Oregon. =119. The Lewis and Clark Expedition.= The next important step in finding a route to the Oregon country was the great expedition undertaken while Thomas Jefferson was yet president. [Sidenote: =Expedition leaves St. Louis=] Lewis and Clark were two young men chosen by Jefferson to explore the region known as the Louisiana Purchase and to make their way across the Rocky Mountains to the Oregon country and to the Pacific. They chose forty-two men to go with them--some as soldiers, others as servants, and still others as hunters. From the little French village of St. Louis they began their adventurous journey in boats in the spring of 1804. [Illustration: CAPTAIN MERIWETHER LEWIS _From the original painting by Charles Wilson Peale in Independence Hall, Philadelphia_] Up the Missouri River they slowly made their way against the current of the muddy, rushing stream. At one time it was so swift that they could not force boats against it, and at another time the brushwood that came down the river broke their oars. [Sidenote: =Smoked the "pipe of peace"=] Near where the city of Council Bluffs now stands, Lewis and Clark held a great meeting with the Indians. They told the Indians that the people of the United States and not the people of France were now the owners of this great land. Together they smoked the "pipe of peace," and the Indians promised to be friendly. On they went till the region near the Black Hills was reached. It was the fall of the year and the trees were bright with color, and the wild ducks and geese in large numbers were seen going southward. [Sidenote: =Spent the winter with the Indians=]