was sent back at once and it was on this second voyage that Captain Gray made his famous discovery. He had wintered on the coast and in the spring was working southward, turning his prow into every strange inlet in the hope of finding fresh villages of natives to exploit for furs.^ On the 7th of May he ran into a harbour in latitude 46° 58' which he called Bulfinch Harbour but to which Vancouver later gave the more appropriate name of Gray's Harbour. Four days later he ran in between the breakers into what at first he supposed to be another harbour. He says, however, " When we were over the bar we found this to be a large river of fresh water, up which we steered." Gray traded with the Indians along the lower Columbia, and before leaving the river, which he did on Alay 20, he bestowed upon it the name of his good ship.^
Vancouver explores the Columbia. Vancouver learned from Gray about the new discovery, and in October he sent Lieutenant Broughton into the river with the ship Chatham. Broughton ascended to the first rapids, about one hundred miles from the bar, whereas Gray had sailed up only some thirty miles.
iThe traders found that the largest profits came from the trade with Indians who had never before seen white men. The Americans in one case secured furs vallied at several hundred dollars for an old chisel! Hence profitable trade was dependent on new explorations.
2 Gray also named the north and south headlands at the mouth of the river, calling the first Cape Hancock, the second Cape Adams. Meares, in 1788, had named the North Cape Disappointment which name it retains.
