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Updated: May 15, 2025
A glance at the map will show how closely the latitude given corresponds to the mouth of the river which was discovered later by Captain Gray and named, after his ship, the Columbia. A short time before Heceta's discovery, Captain Jonathan Carver of Connecticut set out on an exploring tour, partly for the purpose of determining the width of the continent and the nature of the Indian inhabitants.
East of a high island, where holiday folk now have their summer camps, Pilot Narvaez came on the estuary of a great river, which he called Boca de Florida Blanca. This could not be Bruno Heceta's river, for this was farther north and inland. It was a new river, with wonderful purple water the purple of river silt blending with ocean blue.
Greenhow obtained from the Hydrographical Office at Madrid the report of Captain Bruno Heceta's voyage in 1775, when he sighted the mouth of a river supposed to be the Columbia.
The American told an astounding story. He had found Bruno Heceta's River of the West. Vancouver refused to credit the news; yet there was the ship's log; there were the details landmarks, soundings, anchorages for twenty miles up the Columbia from its mouth. Gray had, indeed, been up the river, and had crossed the bar and come out on the Pacific again.
In latitude 46° 17' he found an opening in the coast from which a strong current issued. He felt sure that he had discovered the mouth of some large river. Upon the later Spanish maps this was called Heceta's Inlet, or River of San Roque.
As we have seen, Bruno Heceta, acting for Spain, was the first mariner to sight the Columbia, and the American, Robert Gray, was the first to enter its mouth, thus proving Heceta's conjecture of a great river.
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