The quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, Vol. 1, No. 3, September, 1900Oregon Historical Society
History
The quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, Vol. 1, No. 3, September, 1900
Oregon Historical Society
Oregon -- History -- Periodicals
The Missouri _Reporter_ of the fourteenth instant contains a
notice of the expedition of Lieutenant Fremont, of the United
States Topographical Engineers, to the base of the Rocky
Mountains, in the latitude of the Platte and Kanzas rivers, with
a view to ascertain positions and localities, to explore the
face of the country, and to make the government fully acquainted
with that remote and important point of our extended territory
now becoming of so much greater interest from the extension of
our trade to the northern parts of Mexico and California, and
the settlement growing up in the valley of the Columbia River.
The line of communication now followed by immigrants, traders
and travelers to the Columbia and California, is upon this
route, and through the famous South Pass—a depression in the
Rocky Mountains at the head of the River Platte, which makes a
gate in that elevated ridge, passable in a state of nature, for
loaded wagons, of which many have passed through. This
examination of the country on this side of the Rocky Mountains
comes at a very auspicious moment to complete our researches in
that direction, and to give more value to the surveys and
examinations of the Columbia River, its estuary, and the
surrounding country, made by Lieutenant Wilkes in his recent
voyage, and of which a full report has been made to the
government. These two examinations will give us an authentic and
interesting view of the important country belonging to the
United States on each side of the Rocky Mountains; and taken in
connection with the great scientific survey of Mr. Nicollet,
commencing at the mouth of the Missouri River, and extending
north to the head of the Mississippi, and to latitude 49°, and
covering all the country in the forks of these two rivers, over
an extent of ten degrees of latitude, will shed immense light
upon the geography and natural history of the vast region west
of the Mississippi River.—_Globe_.
The following is the article from the Missouri _Reporter_:
Lieutenant Fremont, of the corps of the topographical engineers,
left here under orders from the war department, about ten days
ago, with a party of twenty men on a tour to the Rocky
Mountains. The object of the expedition is an examination of the
country between the mouth of the Kanzas and the headwaters of
the great River Platte, including the navigable parts of both
these rivers, and what is called the Southern Pass in the Rocky
Mountains, and intermediate country, with the view to the
establishment of a line of military posts from the frontiers of
Missouri to the mouth of the Columbia River. This expedition is
connected with the proposition now before congress to occupy the
territory about the Columbia River as proposed by Dr. Linn’s
bill.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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