OREGON MEANING, ORIGIN AND APPLICATION 325
word "Oregon", which he did in his book published in 1778, using it four different times and each time he said, "Oregon or the river of West," showing that he understood the word to mean, The River of the West. While Captain Carver was the first white person to use the word "Oregon", others before him spoke of a western river. In 1673, when Father Mar- quette and Joliet passed down the Mississippi, which they called the "Conception River", 20 they supposed that they would float into the South Sea, later known as the Pacific Ocean; but when they reached the Missouri it was evident to themi from so vast a stream, that it must have come a long distance and drained a large section of country. The Indians informed them that such was the case and that beyond the source of the Missouri was another "large river that flowed westward". 21 In 1683, when Baron Lahontan was exploring the Des Moines River he was told, by the Indians, "of a great western river running to the ocean", 22 and Charlevoix, in 1721, while along the upper Mississippi, "learned of the Indians of a western river leading to the ocean", 23 all of which indicated that the Indians of the Mississippi Valley knew of a western river which flowed into the Pacific ocean; in fact, one of their number, Moncacht-Ape, of the Yazoo tribe, told the French that he had, in 1700, traveled up the Missouri, crossed the mountains and descended a stream, which he called the "Beau- tiful River", to the ocean, making the first known transcon- tinental expedition. 24 Such reports of a western river became a tradition among the Spanish navigators who first explored the Northwest Coast so that in 1543, Ferrelo and his crew, "imagined they saw signs of the inevitable great river" 25 and in 1603, Aguilar sailing along the coast north of Cape Blanco "and near it found a very copious and soundable river, on the banks of which were very large ashes, willows, brambles and other trees of Castile; and wishing to enter it the current would not permit", 26 from which incident the stream was called Rio de Aguilar, which was supposed to be and denoted on some maps as the Columbia River.
20 American Historical Review, XXV No. 4, 676.
21 Bancroft's Northwest Coast, I, 587.
22 U S Geol. Sur. Memoirs of Explorations, Surveys, Voyages and Dtscovertes, 491.
23 Ibid., 492.
24 Davis, Journey of Mon'cacht-A^e.
25 Bancroft's History of California, I, 79.
26 Bancroft's Northwest Coast, I, 146.
