was unable to enter. The fact here to be noted is that the Spaniards of that day did not call the country Oregon, or, if they did, they have left no record of it.
But even before the discovery of the Columbia River by Heceta the name of Oregon appeared in another quarter. Jonathan Carver, of Connecticut, who had served as a captain in the colonial war against the French, set out from Boston in 1766 and proceeded by way of the Great Lakes to the region of the Upper Mississippi, now forming the States of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. He returned to Boston in October, 1768, and then went over to England, where his "Travels' were published. From that journey to the Upper Mississippi region he brought back the name of Oregon, which he says he obtained from the Indians there. "From these nations,' he says, "together with my own observations, I have learned that the four most capital rivers of the Continent of North America, viz., the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, the Bourbon (flowing into Hudson's Bay), and the Oregon, or River of the West, have their, sources in the same neighborhood. The waters of the three former are within thirty miles of each other; the latter, however, is rather farther west."
Carver, of course, had a geographical theory, and was seeking to verify it. This is the first mention of the name of Oregon that has yet been discovered. Carver either invented the word, or produced it from imitation of some word spoken by the Indians. There certainly was no "oregano," or marjoram, about it.
The word "oregano,' it may be noted, has curious usage in Spanish authors. One of Sancho's proverbs, literally translated, runs thus: "Pray God, it may prove marjoram, and not turn out caraway for us.' It is said to be unexplainable why marjoram and caraway in Spain should have been taken as types of the desirable and
