Note 1 — Group I. THREE RIVAL CIVILIZATIONS. (continued 3)

Oregon. What were Carver's sources of information about this river? The Sioux told Father Charlevoix forty odd years earlier (1721), that by going up the Missouri, as high as possible, a great river would be found running west, into the sea. Carver, we know, had read Charlevoix's work. Yet the Sioux may have told him the same story, which he so constantly reiterates in his own narrative, and we know it to be a true story. Substantially, Carver followed the same route which Marquette, Hennepin, and others had before him. This may have cast doubts upon the validity of all he has given, as of his own knowledge. But the main facts came within the ken of so many persons, who could have stamped them as spurious, but did not, that we think their validity must be granted.

But what is the origin of the name Oregon first used by Carver? Here we are all at sea. Bonneville says the word comes from Oregano, which he asserts to have been the early Spanish name for the Columbia River country—derived from oreganum, the botanical name for the wild-sage plant, or artemisia. This seems hardly conclusive. Again, we know the Spaniards gave the name Los Organos (Organ Mountains) to a range of the Sierra Madre, so it is possible they may have applied it indefinitely to the whole chain, north of New Mexico. But the Sioux could hardly have known of either derivation, or Carver have invented the name.