ic. The party was in charge of Meriwether Lewis
and William Clark. Early in May, 1804, they left St. Louis, then a
frontier town of log cabins, and worked their way up the Missouri River
to a spot not far from the present city of Bismarck, North Dakota, where
they passed the winter with the Indians. Resuming their journey in the
spring of 1805, they followed the Missouri to its source in the
mountains, after crossing which they came to the Clear Water River; and
down this they went to the Columbia, which carried them to a spot where,
late in November, 1805, they "saw the waves like small mountains rolling
out in the sea." They were on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. After
spending the winter at the mouth of the Columbia, the party made its way
back to St. Louis in 1806.

%247. The Oregon Country.%--Lewis and Clark were not the first of our
countrymen to see the Columbia River. In 1792 a Boston ship captain
named Gray was trading with the Pacific coast Indians. He was collecting
furs to take to China and exchange for tea to be carried to Boston, and
while so engaged he discovered the mouth of a great river, which he
entered, and named the Columbia in honor of his ship. By right of this
discovery by Gray the United States was entitled to all the country
drained by the Columbia River. By the exploration of this country by
Lewis and Clark our title was made stronger still, and it was finally
perfected a few years later when the trappers and settlers went over the
Rocky Mountains and occupied the Oregon country.[1]

[Footnote 1: Barrows's _Oregon_; McMaster's _History_, Vol. II., pp.
633-635.]

[Illustration: Mouth of the Columbia River]

%248. Pike explores the Southwest.%--While Lewis and Clark were
making their way up the Missouri, Zebulon Pike was sent to find the
source of the Mississippi, which he thought he did in the winter of
1805-06. In this he was mistaken, but supposing his work done, he was
dispatched on another expedition in 1806. Traveling up the Missouri
River to the Osage, and up the Osage nearly to its source, he struck
across Kansas to the Arkansas River, which he followed to its head
waters, wandering in the neighborhood of that fine mountain which in
honor of him bears the name of Pikes Peak. Then he crossed the mountains
and began a search for the Red River. The march was a terrible one. It
was winter; the cold was intense. The snow lay waist deep on the plains.
Often the little band was without fo