rang out; there was laughing and clapping of hands. But some stood reverently silent, with bowed heads and eyes brimming over with tears of thankfulness. The stream found proved to be a branch of the Des Chutes River, along the course of which the travellers passed down to the Dalles, whence a few days brought them to the Willamette. They had suffered the most terrible agony on the route, wasted forty days of precious time, and worse than all, lost about seventyfive of their number.^ Those emigrants who followed the customary route entered the valley at the usual time without serious mishap.
Population of Oregon; its distribution. The population of Oregon, which was doubled by the arrival of the emigrants of 1845, now numbered about six thousand, settled in five counties, of which all but one were in the Willamette valley. They were Yamhill, Clackamas, Tualatin, Champoeg, and Clatsop. In the election of 1845 the total vote for governor was five hundred and four. The following year it was more than doubled, and a new county, Polk, had been added to the list of those lying south of the Columbia, while there was now also a county, named Columbia, north of the river.
Origin of the Puget Sound settlement. The new northern county has its explanation partly in the fact that a few Americans were by this time settled on the waters of Puget Sound. When the colonists first be iThe names of thirty-four, nearly all adults, were printed io the eastern papers of the next year.
