16 Fred Wilbur Powell, A. M.
confluence of the rivers) would come the commerce, at pres- ent chiefly drained by the Multnomah and the Columbia; a region embracing fourteen degrees of longitude, and sixteen or eighteen of latitude, larger than all the Atlantic states put together, and possessing a climate as mild as that of Europe. An establishment formed at that place would doubtless receive many immigrants from Asia. . . .
"Whatever may be the result of the Virginia company, the progress of the fur trade itself, will form a town at the point indicated. Its trade may at first be limited to furs; but in process of time it will become the emporium of that rich East India commerce which is destined to find its way into the valley of the Mississippi ; by the Columbia and Missouri rivers. And when this time arrives, a new Tyre will be seen in the west, of which the old, and although 'queen of cities,' will have fur- nished but a faint image of power and splendor."
While this article does not appear among the Selections, the subject matter is the same and the style is the same. Both may be traced to a ccmmion source in the chapter on "View of the Country on the Columbia,*' in Brackenridge's Views of Louis- iana, from which Benton quoted with credit in the Selections.* Thus he quoted from Brackenridge the following paragraph :
"The route taken by Lewis and Qarke across the mountains, was perhaps the very worst that could have been selected. Mr. Henry, a member of the Missouri company, and his hunt- ers, have discovered several passes, not only very practicable, but even in their present state, less difficult than those of the Allegany [sic] mountains. These are considerably south of the source of the JeflFerson river. It is the opinion of the gentleman last mentioned, that loaded horses, or even wagons, might in its present state, go in the course of six or eight days, from a navigable point on the Columbia, to one on the waters
8 Henry Marie Brackenridge, Views of Louisiana; together with ajoumal of a vcnrage up the Missouri river in 1811. Pittsburgh, 1814; 304 pp. Thus, Benton said: "Look to the map. See the Arkansas, the Platte, and the Yellow Stone, all issuing together from the Rocky Mountains in the neighborhood of the sources of the Buenaventura and the Multnomah [Snake], which issue from the opposite side; the mountains between no more than gentle swells, over whkh loaded waggons may easily pass."— P. 7.
