| Summary: | During the latter half of the eighteenth century geographical exploration of Western North America advanced at a rapid pace and led to a surprising fund of knowledge, some of which has only recently come to light.' England, France, Spain and Russia were the principal participants in the drama, the main themes of which were the search for the Northwest and Northeast Passages to the Orient and for the vast riches thought to exist. By the end of the century the advances on all fronts had proved rather conclusively that the North American Continent was indeed a tremendous land mass, a barrier to a direct water route to Asia, though perhaps through it there might be found that convenientlv located waterway making transcontinental passage possible. To those who wanted to believe, there appeared to be sufficient proof that the several wide water entrances (e.g., Puget Sound, Columbia River, and San Francisco Bay) led far inland to meet with the rivers, such as the Missouri, draining eastward across the Great Plains and into the Mississippi.
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