The history of Oregon and California Author:Robert Greenhow Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: by the Spaniards, Lake Timpanogos, but now generally known as the Utah Lake, is said to be more than a hundred miles in length and of great breadth; it is chiefl... more »y supplied by the Bear River, which enters it on the north-east, alter a long and circuitous course through the mountains. Farther south, near the 39th degree of latitude, is Ashley's Lake, on the shores of which the American traders from Missouri formerly had an establishment. OREGON. The political boundaries of Oregon have never yet been determined by common consent of the parties claiming to possess it. In the United States they are considered as embracing the whole of America west of the Rocky Mountains, from the 42d parallel of latitude to that of 54 degrees 40 minutes. Some geographers have, however, regarded as Oregon only the region actually traversed and drained by the Columbia River, for which Oregon is supposed, erroneously, to have been the aboriginal name; and the British government has always insisted on a still farther contraction of its limits. Leaving the political question to be settled hereafter, the region of the Columbia River will be now examined. The natural boundaries of this region seem to be as follows: On the east, the Rocky Mountains from the 42d parallel of latitude to the 53d ; on the south, the Snowy Mountains, which are said to extend nearly in the course of the 42d parallel from the Rocky Mountains westward to the great chain bordering the Pacific, and thence to the ocean west; on the west, the Pacific Ocean from Cape Mendocino, or its vicinity to Cape Flattery, at the entrance of the Strait of Fuca, near the 49th parallel ; and on the north, the Strait of Fuca, from the ocean to its easternmost extremity, from which a ridge extends northeastward to the Rocky Mountains, separati...« less