covery. In 1793, Alexander Mackenzie, of the NorthWest Company of Montreal, made his memorable journey to the western coast. He came upon a large river which he said the Indians called Tacootche-Tesse. This afterwards turned out to be the Fraser River, but for a time it was confused with the Columbia. Captain Meriwether Lewis mapped it as a northern branch of the Columbia, spelling it Tacoutche. William Cullen Bryant in his great poem Thanatopsis (1812) revived and gave wide circulation to Oregon as the name of the river. Another literary name was Great River of the West, which, of course, did not disturb Columbia as a geographic term. The Washington Historical Quarterly, volume XII, No. 1, for January, 1921, contains a New Log of the Columbia by John Boit. This furnishes many interesting details of the discovery of the mouth of the Columbia River by one who was there at the time.
The first examination of the mouth of the Columbia River for the U. S. Coast Survey was made in 1850 by Lieut. Commanding Wm. P. McArthur, U. S. N. For account of this survey and McArthur's comments on the Columbia River see Oregon Historical Society Quarterly volume XVI, No. 3, September, 1915, which contains an article by Lewis A. McArthur. This article, among other things, contains the first hydrographic notice ever published by the Coast Survey for the Pacific Coast. It is entitled No. 3 Columbia River, Oregon, and gives sailing directions for entering the Columbia River as far as the harbor at Astoria by Lieut. Commanding Wm. P. McArthur, U. S. N., assistant in the Coast Survey.
Comstock, Douglas County. A station on the Southern Pacific Company main line in the northern part of the county, named for James B. Comstock, an early day sawmill operator.
Concomly, Marion County. A station on the Oregon Electric Railway about three miles southwest of Gervais.
