the first edition of his book, describing his travels in the interior of North America. Carver was a great traveller, and also what I may call a great fabricator or fictionist. In the introduction or preface of his book, Carver says that the greatest part of his discoveries have never been published. He added:
"Particularly the account I give of the Naudowesies, and the situation of the Heads of the four great rivers that take their rise within a few leagues of each other, nearly about the center of this great continent, viz: The River Bourbon, which empties itself into Hudson's Bay; the Waters of Saint Lawrence; the Mississippi, and the River Oregon, or the River of the West, that falls into the Pacific Ocean at the straits of Anian." This is the first time the word Oregon was used or mentioned in print.
In the book Carver further wrote of these rivers, and showed on a map, bound in the book, the Straits of Juan de Fuca between latitudes forty-seven and forty-eight and a part of the fabled "Straits of Anian" running southerly from the Straits of Juan de Fuca into the River of the West sixty or seventy miles east of its mouth, somewhat as though Puget Sound extended southerly to the Columbia River. The mouth of the River of the West he placed at about latitude forty-four. This location of the mouth of this river was evidently used by Carver to carry out his fiction, for on his map he placed opposite the mouth of this river the words "Discovered by Aguilar." In January, 1603, Martin de Aguilar, a Spanish naval officer, made an imaginary discovery of a great river, which he asserted flowed into the Pacific Ocean a short distance north of latitude forty-three. The mouth of de Aguilar's river was afterwards shown on maps. It was easy for Carver to connect the head of his fabled river with the mouth of de Aguilar's imaginary one.
At the time Mackenzie discovered the Tacoutche, he knew that the fabled Straits of Anian, and those of De Fonte did not exist. But he supposed the Oregon or River of the West might exist.
