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We have heard of him more than once from persons whom he has set free, after taking their vessels; among others from Captain Daniel, who turned up in Vancouver's Island.
The result has been that several hundred persons from American territory have already flocked to the newly reported auriferous regions, and by the last accounts fresh steamers, and even sailing vessels, were being chartered to convey passengers to Puget Sound, or to Vancouver's Island, whence they have to find their way to the diggings principally by canoes.
In 1860 a total eclipse of the sun was visible in British America. The shadow of the moon, starting from near Vancouver's Island, crossed the continent in a northeast direction, passed through the central part of the Hudson Bay region, crossed Hudson Bay itself and Greenland, then inclining southward, swept over the Atlantic to Spain.
Subsequent to the treaty Great Britain founded the Colonies of British Columbia and Vancouver's Island on the North Pacific. For this we are indebted to the then colonial minister, Sir E. Bulwer Lytton. The first gave a new gold field; the second contains all the bituminous coal to be found on the west side of the great North American Continent.
What is more singular, although they differ surprisingly among themselves in language, they have marked anthropologic similarities, physical and psychical. Virchow has emphasized the fact that the skulls from the northern point of Vancouver's Island reveal an unmistakable analogy to those from the southern coast of California; and this is to a degree true of many intermediate points.
Such being the purpose of the natives, affrays and collisions with the whites will surely follow the accession of numbers, which the latter are now receiving by the influx of adventurers from Vancouver's Island and the United States territories in Oregon; and there is no doubt in my mind that sooner or later the intervention of Her Majesty's Government will be required to restore and maintain the peace.
It contains, too, the only safe harbours between the 49 deg. north latitude and San Francisco, and there have been discovered lately fields of fine coal of immense extent, from which the entire coast of the Pacific, and the steamers trading there, can be supplied. What has been stated with regard to these natural advantages of Vancouver's Island applies generally to the mainland."
It passed here three days ago, and like you was inquiring for Nordenskiold." "An American yacht?" repeated Erik, half stupefied. "Yes the 'Albatross, Captain Tudor Brown, from Vancouver's Island. I told him what I had heard, and he immediately started for Cape Serdze-Kamen." Tudor Brown had evidently heard of the change in the route of the "Alaska." He had reached Behring's Straits before them.
Of its two gold-bearing rivers, one, the Fraser, rises in the northern boundary, and flowing south, falls into the sea at the south-western extremity of the territory, opposite the southern end of Vancouver's Island, and within a few miles of the American boundary; the other, the Thompson River, which rises in the Rocky Mountains, and flowing westward, joins the Fraser about 150 miles from the coast.
But one of the most interesting of all of Vancouver's notes is the following: "The weather was serene and pleasant, and the country continued to exhibit the same luxuriant appearance. At its northern extremity Mount Baker bore compass; the round, snowy mountain, now forming its southern extremity, after my friend Rear-Admiral Ranier, I distinguished by the name of Mount Ranier, May, 1792."
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