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148-766: The Skipanon River is a tributary of the Columbia River , approximately 7 miles (11 km) long, on the Pacific coast of northwest Oregon in the United States. It is the last tributary of the Columbia on the Oregon side, draining an area of coastal bottom land bordered by sand dunes and entering the river from the south at its mouth west of Astoria . The Skipanon River issues from Cullaby Lake in western Clatsop County , northeast of Seaside and less than 3 miles (4.8 km) from

296-567: A boundary along the Columbia River, the Oregon Treaty of 1846 set the boundary at the 49th parallel. As part of the treaty, the British retained all areas north of the line while the United States acquired the south. The Columbia River became much of the border between the U.S. territories of Oregon and Washington . Oregon became a U.S. state in 1859, while Washington later entered into

444-564: A complex network of dry canyon-like channels, or coulees that are often braided and sharply gouged into the basalt rock underlying the region's deep topsoil. Numerous flat-topped buttes with rich soil stand high above the chaotic scablands. Constrictions at several places caused the floodwaters to pool into large temporary lakes, such as Lake Lewis , in which sediments were deposited. Water depths have been estimated at 1,000 feet (300 m) at Wallula Gap and 400 feet (120 m) over modern Portland, Oregon. Sediments were also deposited when

592-443: A day when travelling at 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph). Her maiden outward voyage to Melbourne took 42 days, with one coaling stop, carrying 4,000 tons of cargo. Other similar ships were rapidly brought into service over the next few years. By 1885 the usual boiler pressure was 150 pounds per square inch (1,000 kPa) and virtually all ocean-going steamships being built were ordered with triple expansion engines. Within

740-560: A demonstration project for the potential use of nuclear energy. Thousands of Liberty Ships (powered by steam piston engines) and Victory Ships (powered by steam turbine engines) were built in World War II. A few of these survive as floating museums and sail occasionally: SS  Jeremiah O'Brien , SS  John W. Brown , SS  American Victory , SS  Lane Victory , and SS  Red Oak Victory . A steam turbine ship can be either direct propulsion (the turbines, equipped with

888-430: A few further experiments until SS  Aberdeen  (1881) went into service on the route from Britain to Australia. Her triple expansion engine was designed by Dr A C Kirk, the engineer who had developed the machinery for Propontis . The difference was the use of two double ended Scotch type steel boilers, running at 125 pounds per square inch (860 kPa). These boilers had patent corrugated furnaces that overcame

1036-551: A few years, new installations were running at 200 pounds per square inch (1,400 kPa). The tramp steamers that operated at the end of the 1880s could sail at 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) with a fuel consumption of 0.5 ounces (14 g) of coal per ton mile travelled. This level of efficiency meant that steamships could now operate as the primary method of maritime transport in the vast majority of commercial situations. In 1890, steamers constituted 57% of world's tonnage, and by World War I their share raised to 93%. By 1870

1184-473: A given distance, but fewer firemen were needed to fuel the boilers, so crew costs and their accommodation space were reduced. Agamemnon was able to sail from London to China with a coaling stop at Mauritius on the outward and return journey, with a time on passage substantially less than the competing sailing vessels. Holt had already ordered two sister ships to Agamemnon by the time she had returned from her first trip to China in 1866, operating these ships in

1332-504: A head wind, most notably against the southwest monsoon when returning with a cargo of new tea. Though the auxiliary steamers persisted in competing in far eastern trade for a few years (and it was Erl King that carried the first cargo of tea through the Suez Canal ), they soon moved on to other routes. What was needed was a big improvement in fuel efficiency. While the boilers for steam engines on land were allowed to run at high pressures,

1480-403: A long bush of soft metal was fitted in the after end of the stern tube. SS  Great Eastern had this arrangement fail on her first transatlantic voyage, with very large amounts of uneven wear. The problem was solved with a lignum vitae water-lubricated bearing, patented in 1858. This became standard practice and is in use today. Since the motive power of screw propulsion is delivered along

1628-495: A number of inventions such as the screw propeller , the compound engine , and the triple-expansion engine made trans-oceanic shipping on a large scale economically viable. In 1870 the White Star Line ’s RMS  Oceanic set a new standard for ocean travel by having its first-class cabins amidships, with the added amenity of large portholes, electricity and running water. The size of ocean liners increased from 1880 to meet

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1776-458: A particularly compact compound engine and taken great care with the hull design, producing a light, strong, easily driven hull. The efficiency of Holt's package of boiler pressure, compound engine and hull design gave a ship that could steam at 10 knots on 20 long tons of coal a day. This fuel consumption was a saving from between 23 and 14 long tons a day, compared to other contemporary steamers. Not only did less coal need to be carried to travel

1924-634: A physician who had been in the fur trade since 1804, was appointed superintendent of the Columbia District. The HBC reoriented its Columbia District operations toward the Pacific Ocean via the Columbia, which became the region's main trunk route. In the early 1840s Americans began to colonize the Oregon country in large numbers via the Oregon Trail , despite the HBC's efforts to discourage American settlement in

2072-520: A population as great as 10,000. The site drew traders from as far away as the Great Plains. The Cascades Rapids of the Columbia River Gorge, and Kettle Falls and Priest Rapids in eastern Washington, were also major fishing and trading sites. In prehistoric times the Columbia's salmon and steelhead runs numbered an estimated annual average of 10 to 16 million fish. In comparison,

2220-681: A private American ship, Columbia Rediviva, under Captain Robert Gray from Boston became the first non-indigenous vessel to enter the river. Later in 1792, William Robert Broughton of the British Royal Navy commanding HMS Chatham as part of the Vancouver Expedition , navigated past the Oregon Coast Range and 100 miles (160 km) upriver to what is now Vancouver, Washington. In the following decades, fur-trading companies used

2368-470: A reduction gear, rotate directly the propellers), or turboelectric (the turbines rotate electric generators, which in turn feed electric motors operating the propellers). While steam turbine-driven merchant ships such as the Algol -class cargo ships (1972–1973), ALP Pacesetter-class container ships (1973–1974) and very large crude carriers were built until the 1970s, the use of steam for marine propulsion in

2516-426: A sailing vessel. The steam engine would only be used when conditions were unsuitable for sailing – in light or contrary winds. Some of this type (for instance Erl King ) were built with propellers that could be lifted clear of the water to reduce drag when under sail power alone. These ships struggled to be successful on the route to China, as the standing rigging required when sailing was a handicap when steaming into

2664-399: A shaft that is positioned above the waterline, with the cylinders positioned below the shaft. SS  Great Britain used chain drive to transmit power from a paddler's engine to the propeller shaft – the result of a late design change to propeller propulsion. An effective stern tube and associated bearings were required. The stern tube contains the propeller shaft where it passes through

2812-471: A shifting sandbar that makes the river's mouth one of the most hazardous stretches of water to navigate in the world. Because of the danger and the many shipwrecks near the mouth, it acquired a reputation as the "Graveyard of Ships". The Columbia drains an area of about 258,000 sq mi (670,000 km ). Its drainage basin covers nearly all of Idaho , large portions of British Columbia, Oregon, and Washington, and ultimately all of Montana west of

2960-533: Is Hanford Reach , the only U.S. stretch of the river that is completely free-flowing, unimpeded by dams, and not a tidal estuary . The Snake River and Yakima River join the Columbia in the Tri-Cities population center. The Columbia makes a sharp bend to the west at the Washington–Oregon border. The river defines that border for the final 309 mi (497 km) of its journey. The Deschutes River joins

3108-661: Is not federally recognized , who live near the lower Columbia River, call it Wimahl or Wimal in the Upper Chinook (Kiksht) language , and it is Nch’i-Wàna or Nchi wana to the Sahaptin (Ichishkíin Sɨ́nwit) -speaking peoples of its middle course in present-day Washington. The river is known as swah'netk'qhu by the Sinixt people , who live in the area of the Arrow Lakes in

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3256-518: Is the Snake River . Its drainage basin is roughly the size of France and extends into seven states of the United States and one Canadian province. The fourth-largest river in the United States by flow , the Columbia has the greatest flow of any river into the eastern Pacific. The Columbia and its tributaries have been central to the region's culture and economy for thousands of years. They have been used for transportation since ancient times, linking

3404-871: The Big Bend Country , passing through Revelstoke Lake and the Arrow Lakes . Revelstoke, the Big Bend, and the Columbia Valley combined are referred to in BC parlance as the Columbia Country . Below the Arrow Lakes, the Columbia passes the cities of Castlegar , located at the Columbia's confluence with the Kootenay River , and Trail , two major population centers of the West Kootenay region. The Pend Oreille River joins

3552-515: The Board of Trade (under the authority of the Merchant Shipping Act 1854 ) would not allow ships to exceed 20 or 25 pounds per square inch (140 or 170 kPa). Compound engines were a known source of improved efficiency – but generally not used at sea due to the low pressures available. Carnatic (1863) , a P&O ship, had a compound engine – and achieved better efficiency than other ships of

3700-646: The Canadian Rockies and the Columbia Mountains in BC. For its first 200 mi (320 km), the Columbia flows northwest along the trench through Windermere Lake and the town of Invermere , a region known in BC as the Columbia Valley , then northwest to Golden and into Kinbasket Lake . Rounding the northern end of the Selkirk Mountains , the river turns sharply south through a region known as

3848-453: The Cold War (eg. Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov ), because of needs of high power and speed, although from 1970s they were mostly replaced by gas turbines . Large naval vessels and submarines continue to be operated with steam turbines, using nuclear reactors to boil the water. NS Savannah , was the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, and was built in the late 1950s as

3996-547: The Columbia River Plateau and forced the lower Columbia into its present course. The modern Cascade Range began to uplift 5 to 4 million years ago. Cutting through the uplifting mountains, the Columbia River significantly deepened the Columbia River Gorge. The river and its drainage basin experienced some of the world's greatest known catastrophic floods toward the end of the last ice age . The periodic rupturing of ice dams at Glacial Lake Missoula resulted in

4144-576: The Continental Divide , and small portions of Wyoming , Utah , and Nevada ; the total area is similar to the size of France. Roughly 745 mi (1,199 km) of the river's length and 85 percent of its drainage basin are in the US. The Columbia is the twelfth-longest river and has the sixth-largest drainage basin in the United States. In Canada, where the Columbia flows for 498 mi (801 km) and drains 39,700 sq mi (103,000 km ),

4292-565: The East Coast to the West Coast of the United States began on 28 February 1849, with the arrival of SS  California in San Francisco Bay . The California left New York Harbor on 6  October 1848, rounded Cape Horn at the tip of South America, and arrived at San Francisco, California, after a four-month and 21-day journey. The first steamship to operate on the Pacific Ocean was

4440-702: The Eocene through the Miocene eras, tremendous volcanic eruptions frequently modified much of the landscape traversed by the Columbia. The lower reaches of the ancestral river passed through a valley near where Mount Hood later arose. Carrying sediments from erosion and erupting volcanoes, it built a 2-mile (3.2 km) thick delta that underlies the foothills on the east side of the Coast Range near Vernonia in northwestern Oregon. Between 17 million and 6 million years ago, huge outpourings of flood basalt lava covered

4588-581: The Grand Coulee Dam in the mid-20th century impounded the river, forming Lake Roosevelt , from which water was pumped into the dry coulee , forming the reservoir of Banks Lake . The river flows past The Gorge Amphitheatre , a prominent concert venue in the Northwest, then through Priest Rapids Dam , and then through the Hanford Nuclear Reservation . Entirely within the reservation

Skipanon River - Misplaced Pages Continue

4736-607: The Marmes Rockshelter , near the confluence of the Palouse and Snake rivers in eastern Washington. In 1996 the skeletal remains of a 9,000-year-old prehistoric man (dubbed Kennewick Man ) were found near Kennewick, Washington . The discovery rekindled debate in the scientific community over the origins of human habitation in North America and sparked a protracted controversy over whether the scientific or Native American community

4884-573: The Mediterranean and then through the Red Sea . While this worked for passengers and some high value cargo, sail was still the only solution for virtually all trade between China and Western Europe or East Coast America. Most notable of these cargoes was tea , typically carried in clippers . Another partial solution was the Steam Auxiliary Ship – a vessel with a steam engine, but also rigged as

5032-600: The Missouri River . The first documented European discovery of the Columbia River was that of Bruno de Heceta , who in 1775 sighted the river's mouth. On the advice of his officers, he did not explore it, as he was short-staffed and the current was strong. He considered it a bay, and called it Ensenada de Asunción ( Assumption Cove ). Later Spanish maps, based on his sighting, showed a river, labeled Río de San Roque ( The Saint Roch River ), or an entrance, called Entrada de Hezeta , named for Bruno de Hezeta , who sailed

5180-548: The Molala , Klickitat , Wenatchi , Okanagan, and Sinkiuse-Columbia peoples, who owned small numbers of horses and adopted few plains culture features. Some groups remained essentially unaffected, such as the Sanpoil and Nespelem people, whose culture remained centered on fishing. Natives of the region encountered foreigners at several times and places during the 18th and 19th centuries. European and American vessels explored

5328-517: The Oregon Country along the Clearwater and Snake rivers, and encountered numerous small settlements of natives. Their records recount tales of hospitable traders who were not above stealing small items from the visitors. They also noted brass teakettles, a British musket, and other artifacts that had been obtained in trade with coastal tribes. From the earliest contact with westerners, the natives of

5476-573: The Pacific Northwest region of North America . The river forms in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia , Canada. It flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington , then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state of Oregon before emptying into the Pacific Ocean . The river is 1,243 mi (2,000 km) long, and its largest tributary

5624-763: The Shoshone Bannock tribes are present. The Sinixt or Lakes people lived on the lower stretch of the Canadian portion, while above that the Shuswap people (Secwepemc in their own language) reckon the whole of the upper Columbia east to the Rockies as part of their territory. The Canadian portion of the Columbia Basin outlines the traditional homelands of the Canadian Kootenay– Ktunaxa . The Chinook tribe, which

5772-473: The Yakima War , decimated the native population and removed much land from native control. As years progressed, the right of natives to fish along the Columbia became the central issue of contention with the states, commercial fishers, and private property owners. The US Supreme Court upheld fishing rights in landmark cases in 1905 and 1918, as well as the 1974 case United States v. Washington , commonly called

5920-455: The eruption of Mount St. Helens deposited large amounts of sediment in the lower Columbia, temporarily reducing the depth of the shipping channel by 26 feet (7.9 m). Humans have inhabited the Columbia's watershed for more than 15,000 years, with a transition to a sedentary lifestyle based mainly on salmon starting about 3,500 years ago. In 1962, archaeologists found evidence of human activity dating back 11,230 years at

6068-696: The reciprocating steam engine , and was far easier to control. Diesel engines also required far less supervision and maintenance than steam engines, and as an internal combustion engine it did not need boilers or a water supply, therefore was more space efficient and cheaper to build. The Liberty ships were the last major steamship class equipped with reciprocating engines. The last Victory ships had already been equipped with marine diesels, and diesel engines superseded both steamers and windjammers soon after World War Two. Most steamers were used up to their maximum economical life span, and no commercial ocean-going steamers with reciprocating engines have been built since

Skipanon River - Misplaced Pages Continue

6216-746: The 116-ton Aaron Manby , built in 1821 by Aaron Manby at the Horseley Ironworks , and became the first iron-built vessel to put to sea when she crossed the English Channel in 1822, arriving in Paris on 22 June. She carried passengers and freight to Paris in 1822 at an average speed of 8 knots (9 mph, 14 km/h). The American ship SS  Savannah first crossed the Atlantic Ocean arriving in Liverpool, England, on June 20, 1819, although most of

6364-534: The 1840s a mass migration of American settlers undermined British control. The Hudson's Bay Company tried to maintain dominance by shifting from the fur trade, which was in decline, to exporting other goods such as salmon and lumber. Colonization schemes were attempted, but failed to match the scale of American settlement. Americans generally settled south of the Columbia, mainly in the Willamette Valley. The Hudson's Bay Company tried to establish settlements north of

6512-452: The 1930s, there were natives who lived along the river and fished year round, moving along with the fish's migration patterns throughout the seasons. The Yakama were slower to do so, organizing a formal government in 1944. In the 21st century, the Yakama, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Warm Springs tribes all have treaty fishing rights along the Columbia and its tributaries. In 1957 Celilo Falls

6660-401: The 1960s. Most steamships today are powered by steam turbines . After the demonstration by British engineer Charles Parsons of his steam turbine-driven yacht, Turbinia , in 1897, the use of steam turbines for propulsion quickly spread. The Cunard RMS Mauretania , built in 1906 was one of the first ocean liners to use the steam turbine (with a late design change shortly before her keel

6808-473: The 20th century, each of these major fishing sites was flooded by a dam, beginning with Cascades Rapids in 1938. The development was accompanied by extensive negotiations between natives and US government agencies. The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, a coalition of various tribes, adopted a constitution and incorporated after the 1938 completion of the Bonneville Dam flooded Cascades Rapids; Still, in

6956-460: The Americas and is the fourth-largest by volume in the U.S. The average flow where the river crosses the international border between Canada and the United States is 2,790 m /s (99,000 cu ft/s) from a drainage basin of 102,800 km (39,700 sq mi). This amounts to about 15 percent of the entire Columbia watershed. The Columbia's highest recorded flow, measured at The Dalles,

7104-470: The Atlantic Ocean on a scheduled liner voyage before she was converted to diesels in 1986. The last major passenger ship built with steam turbines was the Fairsky , launched in 1984, later Atlantic Star , reportedly sold to Turkish shipbreakers in 2013. Most luxury yachts at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries were steam driven (see luxury yacht ; also Cox & King yachts ). Thomas Assheton Smith

7252-579: The Atlantic, around the southern tip of Africa, and across the Indian Ocean . Before 1866, no steamship could carry enough coal to make this voyage and have enough space left to carry a commercial cargo. A partial solution to this problem was adopted by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), using an overland section between Alexandria and Suez , with connecting steamship routes along

7400-594: The Boldt Decision. Fish were central to the culture of the region's natives, both as sustenance and as part of their religious beliefs. Natives drew fish from the Columbia at several major sites, which also served as trading posts. Celilo Falls , located east of the modern city of The Dalles, was a vital hub for trade and the interaction of different cultural groups, being used for fishing and trading for 11,000 years. Prior to contact with westerners, villages along this 9-mile (14 km) stretch may have at times had

7548-463: The Bristol-New York route. The idea of regular scheduled transatlantic service was under discussion by several groups and the rival British and American Steam Navigation Company was established at the same time. Great Western's design sparked controversy from critics that contended that she was too big. The principle that Brunel understood was that the carrying capacity of a hull increases as

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7696-489: The Columbia Bar, becoming the first known explorer of European descent to enter the river . Gray's fur trading mission had been financed by Boston merchants, who outfitted him with a private vessel named Columbia Rediviva ; he named the river after the ship on May 18. Gray spent nine days trading near the mouth of the Columbia, then left without having gone beyond 13 miles (21 km) upstream. The farthest point reached

7844-486: The Columbia River Gorge, about 100 miles (160 km) upstream, sighting and naming Mount Hood. Broughton formally claimed the river, its drainage basin , and the nearby coast for Britain. In contrast, Gray had not made any formal claims on behalf of the United States. Because the Columbia was at the same latitude as the headwaters of the Missouri River, there was some speculation that Gray and Vancouver had discovered

7992-538: The Columbia River Gorge, sending massive amounts of debris south from Table Mountain and Greenleaf Peak into the gorge near the present site of Bonneville Dam. The most recent and significant is known as the Bonneville Slide , which formed a massive earthen dam, filling 3.5 miles (5.6 km) of the river's length. Various studies have placed the date of the Bonneville Slide anywhere between 1060 and 1760 AD;

8140-417: The Columbia River Gorge. The Celilo Canal , bypassing Celilo Falls, opened to river traffic in 1915. In the mid-20th century, the construction of dams along the length of the river submerged the rapids beneath a series of reservoirs. An extensive system of locks allowed ships and barges to pass easily between reservoirs. A navigation channel reaching Lewiston, Idaho , along the Columbia and Snake rivers,

8288-478: The Columbia River. The mountainous terrain where the unit would be placed in is Juniper Point, referred to by the Yakama as Pushpum. Pushpum has rock formations, as well as food and medicine capabilities that are essential to the Yakama. Members of the Yakama tribe wish for consent on the Goldendale project, as opposed to consultation. Some historians believe that Japanese or Chinese vessels blown off course reached

8436-734: The Columbia about 2 miles (3 km) north of the United States–Canada border . The Columbia enters eastern Washington flowing south and turning to the west at the Spokane River confluence. It marks the southern and eastern borders of the Colville Indian Reservation and the western border of the Spokane Indian Reservation . The river turns south after the Okanogan River confluence, then southeasterly near

8584-407: The Columbia as a key transportation route. Overland explorers entered the Willamette Valley through the scenic, but treacherous Columbia River Gorge , and pioneers began to settle the valley in increasing numbers. Steamships along the river linked communities and facilitated trade; the arrival of railroads in the late 19th century, many running along the river, supplemented these links. Since

8732-412: The Columbia near The Dalles . Between The Dalles and Portland , the river cuts through the Cascade Range , forming the dramatic Columbia River Gorge . Via the gorge, the Columbia crosses the Cascades at a lower elevation than any other river. The gorge is known for its strong and steady winds, scenic beauty, and its role as an important transportation link. The river continues west, bending sharply to

8880-406: The Columbia to improve navigation. Changes to the river over the years have included the construction of jetties at the river's mouth, dredging , and the construction of canals and navigation locks . Today, ocean freighters can travel upriver as far as Portland and Vancouver, and barges can reach as far inland as Lewiston, Idaho . The shifting Columbia Bar makes passage between the river and

9028-427: The Columbia's main stem and many more on its tributaries produce more than 44 percent of total U.S. hydroelectric generation . Production of nuclear power has taken place at two sites along the river. Plutonium for nuclear weapons was produced for decades at the Hanford Site , which is now the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States. These developments have greatly altered river environments in

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9176-406: The Columbia, they failed to send word home to Spain. In the 18th century, there was strong interest in discovering a Northwest Passage that would permit navigation between the Atlantic (or inland North America) and the Pacific Ocean. Many ships in the area, especially those under Spanish and British command, searched the northwest coast for a large river that might connect to Hudson Bay or

9324-415: The Liverpool to New York route. RMS  Titanic was the largest steamship in the world when she sank in 1912; a subsequent major sinking of a steamer was that of the RMS  Lusitania , as an act of World War I . Launched in 1938, RMS  Queen Elizabeth was the largest passenger steamship ever built. Launched in 1969, Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) was the last passenger steamship to cross

9472-402: The Lower Umpqua Tribe, Siuslaw Tribe, and Coos Tribe in 1984, the Klamath Tribe in 1986, and the Coquille Tribe in 1989. While all the aforementioned tribes received federally recognized status, the Chinook Indian Nation had their federal recognition revoked in 2002 by the Bush Administration, and are fighting to have it restored. In 2023, members of the Yakama Nation expressed their dismay for

9620-411: The Missoula Floods, with discharges exceeding the combined flow of all the other rivers in the world, dozens of times over thousands of years. The exact number of floods is unknown, but geologists have documented at least 40; evidence suggests that they occurred between about 19,000 and 13,000 years ago. The floodwaters rushed across eastern Washington, creating the channeled scablands , which are

9768-418: The Northwest Coast long before Europeans—possibly as early as 219  BCE . Historian Derek Hayes claims that "It is a near certainty that Japanese or Chinese people arrived on the northwest coast long before any European." It is unknown whether they landed near the Columbia. Evidence exists that Spanish castaways reached the shore in 1679 and traded with the Clatsop ; if these were the first Europeans to see

9916-421: The Pacific Ocean difficult and dangerous, and numerous rapids along the river hinder navigation. Pacific Graveyard, a 1964 book by James A. Gibbs , describes the many shipwrecks near the mouth of the Columbia. Jetties, first constructed in 1886, extend the river's channel into the ocean. Strong currents and the shifting sandbar remain a threat to ships entering the river and necessitate continuous maintenance of

10064-407: The Snake River, reaching the Columbia near the present-day Tri-Cities, Washington. They explored a few miles upriver, as far as Bateman Island , before heading down the Columbia, concluding their journey at the river's mouth and establishing Fort Clatsop , a short-lived establishment that was occupied for less than three months. Canadian explorer David Thompson , of the North West Company , spent

10212-491: The Union in 1889. By the turn of the 20th century, the difficulty of navigating the Columbia was seen as an impediment to the economic development of the Inland Empire region east of the Cascades. The dredging and dam building that followed would permanently alter the river, disrupting its natural flow but also providing electricity, irrigation , navigability and other benefits to the region. American captain Robert Gray and British captain George Vancouver, who explored

10360-449: The Yakama Tribe were arrested in a federal sting operation which claimed that fishermen were poaching up to 40,000 fish in the Columbia River. Fishermen placed on trial received sentences ranging from six months to five years. The federal government pinned Yakama Tribe member David Sohappy ringleader of the operation. After the trial ended, it was determined that the fish were not poached, but driven away because of harmful chemicals present in

10508-540: The affection of a goddess, represented by Mount St. Helens . Native American stories about the bridge differ in their details but agree in general that the bridge permitted increased interaction between tribes on the north and south sides of the river. Horses, originally acquired from Spanish New Mexico , spread widely via native trade networks, reaching the Shoshone of the Snake River Plain by 1700. The Nez Perce, Cayuse, and Flathead people acquired their first horses around 1730. Along with horses came aspects of

10656-645: The base of Bonneville Dam , its head of tide . When the rifting of Pangaea , due to the process of plate tectonics , pushed North America away from Europe and Africa and into the Panthalassic Ocean (ancestor to the modern Pacific Ocean), the Pacific Northwest was not part of the continent. As the North American continent moved westward, the Farallon Plate subducted under its western margin. As

10804-518: The center of an extensive trading network across the Pacific Plateau. Celilo was the oldest continuously inhabited community on the North American continent. Salmon canneries established by white settlers beginning in 1866 had a strong negative impact on the salmon population, and in 1908 US president Theodore Roosevelt observed that the salmon runs were but a fraction of what they had been 25 years prior. As river development continued in

10952-466: The coastal area around the mouth of the river in the late 18th century, trading with local natives. The contact would prove devastating to the indigenous Chinookan speaking peoples; a large portion of their population was wiped out by a smallpox epidemic. Canadian explorer Alexander Mackenzie crossed what is now interior British Columbia in 1793. From 1805 to 1806, the Lewis and Clark Expedition entered

11100-426: The commercial market has declined dramatically due to the development of more efficient diesel engines . One notable exception are LNG carriers which use boil-off gas from the cargo tanks as fuel. However, even there the development of dual-fuel engines has pushed steam turbines into a niche market with about 10% market share in newbuildings in 2013. Lately, there has been some development in hybrid power plants where

11248-436: The competing problems of heat transfer and sufficient strength to deal with the boiler pressure. Aberdeen was a marked success, achieving in trials, at 1,800 indicated horsepower , a fuel consumption of 1.28 pounds (0.58 kg) of coal per indicated horsepower. This was a reduction in fuel consumption of about 60%, compared to a typical steamer built ten years earlier. In service, this translated into less than 40 tons of coal

11396-633: The confluence with the Wenatchee River in central Washington. This C-shaped segment of the river is also known as the "Big Bend". During the Missoula Floods 10–15,000 years ago, much of the floodwater took a more direct route south, forming the ancient river bed known as the Grand Coulee . After the floods, the river found its present course, and the Grand Coulee was left dry. The construction of

11544-505: The construction of a Goldendale-based pumped hydroelectric energy storage project. Jeremy Takala of the Yakama Nation embodies Yakama belief on the importance of Columbia River crops to food and medicine, stating "the [Goldendale] project being proposed here, it will definitely impact our life".  The Goldendale-pumped hydro storage unit could allow for reused water use in reservoirs, which would be placed on mountainous terrain overlooking

11692-435: The cube of its dimensions, while water resistance only increases as the square of its dimensions. This meant that large ships were more fuel efficient, something very important for long voyages across the Atlantic. Great Western was an iron-strapped, wooden, side-wheel paddle steamer, with four masts to hoist the auxiliary sails. The sails were not just to provide auxiliary propulsion, but also were used in rough seas to keep

11840-444: The early 1850s. This was superseded at the beginning of the 20th century by floating pad bearing which automatically built up wedges of oil which could withstand bearing pressures of 500 psi or more. Steam-powered ships were named with a prefix designating their propeller configuration i.e. single, twin, triple-screw. Single-screw Steamship SS , Twin-Screw Steamship TSS , Triple-Screw Steamship TrSS . Steam turbine-driven ships had

11988-468: The emerging plains culture , such as equestrian and horse training skills, greatly increased mobility, hunting efficiency, trade over long distances, intensified warfare, the linking of wealth and prestige to horses and war, and the rise of large and powerful tribal confederacies. The Nez Perce and Cayuse kept large herds and made annual long-distance trips to the Great Plains for bison hunting, adopted

12136-411: The first screw propeller to an engine at his Birmingham works, an early steam engine , beginning the use of a hydrodynamic screw for propulsion. The development of screw propulsion relied on the following technological innovations. Steam engines had to be designed with the power delivered at the bottom of the machinery, to give direct drive to the propeller shaft . A paddle steamer's engines drive

12284-604: The first wave of trade globalization (1870–1913)" and contributor to "an increase in international trade that was unprecedented in human history". Steamships were preceded by smaller vessels, called steamboats , conceived in the first half of the 18th century, with the first working steamboat and paddle steamer , the Pyroscaphe , from 1783. Once the technology of steam was mastered at this level, steam engines were mounted on larger, and eventually, ocean-going vessels. Becoming reliable, and propelled by screw rather than paddlewheels,

12432-452: The floodwaters slowed in the broad flats of the Quincy, Othello, and Pasco Basins. The floods' periodic inundation of the lower Columbia River Plateau deposited rich sediments; 21st-century farmers in the Willamette Valley "plow fields of fertile Montana soil and clays from Washington's Palouse". Over the last several thousand years a series of large landslides have occurred on the north side of

12580-425: The hull as waves pass beneath it—becomes too great. Iron hulls are far less subject to hogging, so that the potential size of an iron-hulled ship is much greater. In the spring of 1840 Brunel also had the opportunity to inspect SS  Archimedes , the first screw-propelled steamship, completed only a few months before by F. P. Smith's Propeller Steamship Company. Brunel had been looking into methods of improving

12728-429: The hull structure. It should provide an unrestricted delivery of power by the propeller shaft. The combination of hull and stern tube must avoid any flexing that will bend the shaft or cause uneven wear. The inboard end has a stuffing box that prevents water from entering the hull along the tube. Some early stern tubes were made of brass and operated as a water lubricated bearing along the entire length. In other instances

12876-427: The idea that the landslide debris present today was formed by more than one slide is relatively recent and may explain the large range of estimates. It has been suggested that if the later dates are accurate there may be a link with the 1700 Cascadia earthquake . The pile of debris resulting from the Bonneville Slide blocked the river until rising water finally washed away the sediment. It is not known how long it took

13024-518: The jetties. In 1891, the Columbia was dredged to enhance shipping. The channel between the ocean and Portland and Vancouver was deepened from 17 feet (5.2 m) to 25 feet (7.6 m). The Columbian called for the channel to be deepened to 40 feet (12 m) as early as 1905, but that depth was not attained until 1976. Cascade Locks and Canal were first constructed in 1896 around the Cascades Rapids, enabling boats to travel safely through

13172-447: The largest run since 1938 was in 1986, with 3.2 million fish entering the Columbia. The annual catch by natives has been estimated at 42 million pounds (19,000 metric tons). The most important and productive native fishing site was located at Celilo Falls, which was perhaps the most productive inland fishing site in North America. The falls were located at the border between Chinookan- and Sahaptian-speaking peoples and served as

13320-442: The late 19th century, public and private sectors have extensively developed the river. To aid ship and barge navigation, locks have been built along the lower Columbia and its tributaries, and dredging has opened, maintained, and enlarged shipping channels . Since the early 20th century, dams have been built across the river for power generation , navigation , irrigation , and flood control . The 14 hydroelectric dams on

13468-577: The long-sought Northwest Passage. A 1798 British map showed a dotted line connecting the Columbia with the Missouri. When the American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark charted the vast, unmapped lands of the American West in their overland expedition (1803–1805), they found no passage between the rivers. After crossing the Rocky Mountains , Lewis and Clark built dugout canoes and paddled down

13616-464: The mid- and lower Columbia were not tribal, but instead congregated in social units no larger than a village, and more often at a family level; these units would shift with the season as people moved about, following the salmon catch up and down the river's tributaries. Sparked by the 1847 Whitman Massacre , a number of violent battles were fought between American settlers and the region's natives. The subsequent wars over Northwest territory, especially

13764-405: The navigation channel have continued to the present day. In 1990 a new round of studies examined the possibility of further dredging on the lower Columbia. The plans were controversial from the start because of economic and environmental concerns. Steamship As steamships were less dependent on wind patterns, new trade routes opened up. The steamship has been described as a "major driver of

13912-402: The needs of the human migration to the United States and Australia. RMS  Umbria and her sister ship RMS  Etruria were the last two Cunard liners of the period to be fitted with auxiliary sails. Both ships were built by John Elder & Co. of Glasgow, Scotland, in 1884. They were record breakers by the standards of the time, and were the largest liners then in service, plying

14060-573: The newly formed Blue Funnel Line . His competitors rapidly copied his ideas for their own new ships. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 gave a distance saving of about 3,250 nautical miles (6,020 km; 3,740 mi) on the route from China to London. The canal was not a practical option for sailing vessels, as using a tug was difficult and expensive – so this distance saving was not available to them. Steamships immediately made use of this new waterway and found themselves in high demand in China for

14208-580: The north-northwest near Portland and Vancouver, Washington , at the Willamette River confluence. Here the river slows considerably, dropping sediment that might otherwise form a river delta at the Columbia's mouth. Near Longview, Washington and the Cowlitz River confluence, the river turns west again. The Columbia empties into the Pacific Ocean just west of Astoria, Oregon , over the Columbia Bar ,

14356-458: The ocean. It flows north parallel to the coast and east of U.S. Route 101 . It enters the northwest end of Youngs Bay at the mouth of the Columbia approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) northeast of Warrenton . The mouth of the river is at river mile 10.7 miles (17.2 km) of the Columbia upstream from its mouth. The river's name comes from the Clatsop language, originally referring to a point at

14504-419: The operating costs of steamships were still too high in certain trades, so sail was the only commercial option in many situations. The compound engine, where steam was expanded twice in two separate cylinders, still had inefficiencies. The solution was the triple expansion engine, in which steam was successively expanded in a high pressure, intermediate pressure and a low pressure cylinder. The theory of this

14652-451: The paddle steamer Beaver , launched in 1836 to service Hudson's Bay Company trading posts between Puget Sound Washington and Alaska . The most testing route for steam was from Britain or the East Coast of the U.S. to the Far East . The distance from either is roughly the same, between 14,000 to 15,000 nautical miles (26,000 to 28,000 km; 16,000 to 17,000 mi), traveling down

14800-504: The paddle wheel causing a substantial decrease in performance. Within a few decades of the development of the river and canal steamboat, the first steamships began to cross the Atlantic Ocean . The first sea-going steamboat was Richard Wright's first steamboat Experiment , an ex-French lugger ; she steamed from Leeds to Yarmouth in July 1813. The first iron steamship to go to sea was

14948-453: The performance of Great Britain ' s paddlewheels, and took an immediate interest in the new technology, and Smith, sensing a prestigious new customer for his own company, agreed to lend Archimedes to Brunel for extended tests. Over several months, Smith and Brunel tested a number of different propellers on Archimedes in order to find the most efficient design, a four-bladed model submitted by Smith. When launched in 1843, Great Britain

15096-467: The plains culture to a significant degree, and became the main conduit through which horses and the plains culture diffused into the Columbia River region. Other peoples acquired horses and aspects of the plains culture unevenly. The Yakama, Umatilla, Palus, Spokane, and Coeur d'Alene maintained sizable herds of horses and adopted some of the plains cultural characteristics, but fishing and fish-related economies remained important. Less affected groups included

15244-415: The plate subducted, it carried along island arcs which were accreted to the North American continent, resulting in the creation of the Pacific Northwest between 150 and 90 million years ago. The general outline of the Columbia Basin was not complete until between 60 and 40 million years ago, but it lay under a large inland sea later subject to uplift. Between 50 and 20 million years ago, from

15392-773: The port of Savannah, Georgia , US, on 22 May 1819, arriving in Liverpool , England, on 20 June 1819; her steam engine having been in use for part of the time on 18 days (estimates vary from 8 to 80 hours). A claimant to the title of the first ship to make the transatlantic trip substantially under steam power is the British-built Dutch-owned Curaçao , a wooden 438-ton vessel built in Dover and powered by two 50 hp engines, which crossed from Hellevoetsluis , near Rotterdam on 26 April 1827 to Paramaribo , Surinam on 24 May, spending 11 days under steam on

15540-688: The power plant. These harmful chemicals mainly consisted of aluminum. This event is commonly known today as the Salmon Scam . Shortly after the Salmon Scam, many Columbia River-based indigenous tribes received federally recognized status. The Siletz Tribe was the first to restore its federal recognition in 1977, followed by the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe in 1982, the Grand Ronde Tribe in 1983,

15688-453: The prefix TS . In the UK the prefix RMS for Royal Mail Steamship overruled the screw configuration prefix. The first steamship credited with crossing the Atlantic Ocean between North America and Europe was the American ship SS  Savannah , though she was actually a hybrid between a steamship and a sailing ship, with the first half of the journey making use of the steam engine. Savannah left

15836-786: The rapid settlement and economic development of the region. Steamboats operated in several distinct stretches of the river: on its lower reaches, from the Pacific Ocean to Cascades Rapids; from the Cascades to the Dalles-Celilo Falls; from Celilo to Priests Rapids; on the Wenatchee Reach of eastern Washington; on British Columbia's Arrow Lakes ; and on tributaries like the Willamette , the Snake and Kootenay Lake . The boats, initially powered by burning wood, carried passengers and freight throughout

15984-460: The region for many years. Early railroads served to connect steamboat lines interrupted by waterfalls on the river's lower reaches. In the 1880s, railroads maintained by companies such as the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company began to supplement steamboat operations as the major transportation links along the river. As early as 1881, industrialists proposed altering the natural channel of

16132-428: The region's many cultural groups. The river system hosts many species of anadromous fish, which migrate between freshwater habitats and the saline waters of the Pacific Ocean. These fish—especially the salmon species—provided the core subsistence for native peoples . The first documented European discovery of the Columbia River occurred when Bruno de Heceta sighted the river's mouth in 1775. On May 11, 1792,

16280-498: The region. Following Hezeta's reports, British maritime fur trader Captain John Meares searched for the river in 1788 but concluded that it did not exist. He named Cape Disappointment for the non-existent river, not realizing the cape marks the northern edge of the river's mouth. What happened next would form the basis for decades of both cooperation and dispute between British and American exploration of, and ownership claim to,

16428-627: The region. Royal Navy commander George Vancouver sailed past the mouth in April 1792 and observed a change in the water's color, but he accepted Meares' report and continued on his journey northward. Later that month, Vancouver encountered the American captain Robert Gray at the Strait of Juan de Fuca . Gray reported that he had seen the entrance to the Columbia and had spent nine days trying but failing to enter. On May 12, 1792, Gray returned south and crossed

16576-717: The region. For many the final leg of the journey involved travel down the lower Columbia River to Fort Vancouver. This part of the Oregon Trail, the treacherous stretch from The Dalles to below the Cascades, could not be traversed by horses or wagons (only watercraft, at great risk). This prompted the 1846 construction of the Barlow Road . In the Treaty of 1818 the United States and Britain agreed that both nations were to enjoy equal rights in Oregon Country for 10 years. By 1828, when

16724-526: The revolutionary SS  Great Britain , also built by Brunel, became the first iron-hulled screw-driven ship to cross the Atlantic. SS Great Britain was the first ship to combine these two innovations. After the initial success of its first liner, SS  Great Western of 1838, the Great Western Steamship Company assembled the same engineering team that had collaborated so successfully before. This time however, Brunel, whose reputation

16872-568: The river he had not yet seen, becoming the first Euro-descended person to travel the entire length of the river. In 1825, the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) established Fort Vancouver on the bank of the Columbia, in what is now Vancouver, Washington, as the headquarters of the company's Columbia District , which encompassed everything west of the Rocky Mountains, north of California, and south of Russian-claimed Alaska. Chief Factor John McLoughlin ,

17020-518: The river in 1792, proved that it was possible to cross the Columbia Bar. Many of the challenges associated with that feat remain today; even with modern engineering alterations to the mouth of the river, the strong currents and shifting sandbar make it dangerous to pass between the river and the Pacific Ocean. The use of steamboats along the river, beginning with the British Beaver in 1836 and followed by American vessels in 1850, contributed to

17168-451: The river ranks 23rd in length, and the Canadian part of its basin ranks 13th in size among Canadian basins. The Columbia shares its name with nearby places, such as British Columbia, as well as with landforms and bodies of water. With an average flow at the mouth of about 265,000 cu ft/s (7,500 m /s), the Columbia is the largest river by discharge flowing into the Pacific from

17316-479: The river to break through the barrier; estimates range from several months to several years. Much of the landslide's debris remained, forcing the river about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south of its previous channel and forming the Cascade Rapids . In 1938, the construction of Bonneville Dam inundated the rapids as well as the remaining trees that could be used to refine the estimated date of the landslide. In 1980,

17464-465: The river's mouth rather than the river itself. The charts of the Lewis and Clark Expedition show the stream as Skipanarwin Creek. Another variant spelling, Skeppernawin, was common on maps into the 20th century. Columbia River The Columbia River ( Upper Chinook : Wimahl or Wimal ; Sahaptin : Nch’i-Wàna or Nchi wana ; Sinixt dialect swah'netk'qhu ) is the largest river in

17612-635: The river's upper reaches in Canada. All three terms essentially mean "the big river". Oral histories describe the formation and destruction of the Bridge of the Gods , a land bridge that connected the Oregon and Washington sides of the river in the Columbia River Gorge. The bridge, which aligns with geological records of the Bonneville Slide, was described in some stories as the result of a battle between gods, represented by Mount Adams and Mount Hood , in their competition for

17760-454: The river, but nearly all the British colonists moved south to the Willamette Valley. The hope that the British colonists might dilute the American presence in the valley failed in the face of the overwhelming number of American settlers. These developments rekindled the issue of "joint occupation" and the boundary dispute . While some British interests, especially the Hudson's Bay Company, fought for

17908-478: The shaft, a thrust bearing is needed to transfer that load to the hull without excessive friction. SS  Great Britain had a 2 ft diameter gunmetal plate on the forward end of the shaft which bore against a steel plate attached to the engine beds. Water at 200 psi was injected between these two surfaces to lubricate and separate them. This arrangement was not sufficient for higher engine powers and oil lubricated "collar" thrust bearings became standard from

18056-477: The ship on an even keel and ensure that both paddle wheels remained in the water, driving the ship in a straight line. The hull was built of oak by traditional methods. She was the largest steamship for one year, until the British and American's British Queen went into service. Built at the shipyard of Patterson & Mercer in Bristol, Great Western was launched on 19 July 1837 and then sailed to London, where she

18204-430: The so-called "joint occupation" was renewed indefinitely, it seemed probable that the lower Columbia River would in time become the border between the two nations. For years the Hudson's Bay Company successfully maintained control of the Columbia River and American attempts to gain a foothold were fended off. In the 1830s, American religious missions were established at several locations in the lower Columbia River region. In

18352-511: The start of the 1870 tea season. The steamships were able to obtain a much higher rate of freight than sailing ships and the insurance premium for the cargo was less. So successful were the steamers using the Suez Canal that, in 1871, 45 were built in Clyde shipyards alone for Far Eastern trade. Throughout the 1870s, compound-engined steamships and sailing vessels coexisted in an economic equilibrium:

18500-414: The technology changed the design of ships for faster, more economic propulsion. Paddlewheels as the main motive source became standard on these early vessels. It was an effective means of propulsion under ideal conditions but otherwise had serious drawbacks. The paddle-wheel performed best when it operated at a certain depth, however when the depth of the ship changed from added weight it further submerged

18648-603: The time. Her boilers ran at 26 pounds per square inch (180 kPa) but relied on a substantial amount of superheat . Alfred Holt , who had entered marine engineering and ship management after an apprenticeship in railway engineering, experimented with boiler pressures of 60 pounds per square inch (410 kPa) in Cleator . Holt was able to persuade the Board of Trade to allow these boiler pressures and, in partnership with his brother Phillip launched Agamemnon in 1865. Holt had designed

18796-457: The total watershed. Flow rates on the Columbia are affected by many large upstream reservoirs, many diversions for irrigation, and, on the lower stretches, reverse flow from the tides of the Pacific Ocean. The National Ocean Service observes water levels at six tide gauges and issues tide forecasts for twenty-two additional locations along the river between the entrance at the North Jetty and

18944-404: The voyage was actually made under sail. The first ship to make the transatlantic trip substantially under steam power may have been the British-built Dutch-owned Curaçao , a wooden 438-ton vessel built in Dover and powered by two 50 hp engines, which crossed from Hellevoetsluis , near Rotterdam on 26 April 1827 to Paramaribo , Surinam on 24 May, spending 11 days under steam on

19092-551: The watershed, mainly through industrial pollution and barriers to fish migration. The Columbia begins its 1,243 mi (2,000 km) journey in the southern Rocky Mountain Trench in British Columbia (BC). Columbia Lake  –  2,690 ft (820 m) above sea level  –  and the adjoining Columbia Wetlands form the river's headwaters . The trench is a broad, deep, and long glacial valley between

19240-423: The way out and more on the return. Another claimant is the Canadian ship SS  Royal William in 1833. The British side-wheel paddle steamer SS  Great Western was the first steamship purpose-built for regularly scheduled trans-Atlantic crossings, starting in 1838. In 1836 Isambard Kingdom Brunel and a group of Bristol investors formed the Great Western Steamship Company to build a line of steamships for

19388-499: The way out and more on the return. Another claimant is the Canadian ship SS  Royal William in 1833. The first steamship purpose-built for regularly scheduled trans-Atlantic crossings was the British side-wheel paddle steamer SS  Great Western built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1838, which inaugurated the era of the trans-Atlantic ocean liner . SS  Archimedes , built in Britain in 1839 by Francis Pettit Smith ,

19536-416: The winter of 1807–08 at Kootanae House near the source of the Columbia at present-day Invermere, BC. Over the next few years he explored much of the river and its northern tributaries. In 1811 he traveled down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean, arriving at the mouth just after John Jacob Astor 's Pacific Fur Company had founded Astoria. On his return to the north, Thompson explored the one remaining part of

19684-559: Was 1,240,000 cu ft/s (35,000 m /s) in June 1894, before the river was dammed. The lowest flow recorded at The Dalles was 12,100 cu ft/s (340 m /s) on April 16, 1968, and was caused by the initial closure of the John Day Dam , 28 mi (45 km) upstream. The Dalles is about 190 mi (310 km) from the mouth; the river at this point drains about 237,000 sq mi (610,000 km ) or about 91 percent of

19832-470: Was Grays Bay at the mouth of Grays River . Gray's discovery of the Columbia River was later used by the United States to support its claim to the Oregon Country, which was also claimed by Russia , Great Britain , Spain and other nations. In October 1792, Vancouver sent Lieutenant William Robert Broughton , his second-in-command, up the river. Broughton got as far as the Sandy River at the western end of

19980-554: Was an English aristocrat who forwarded the design of the steam yacht in conjunction with the Scottish marine engineer Robert Napier . By World War II , steamers still constituted 73% of world's tonnage, and similar percentage remained in early 1950s. The decline of the steamship began soon thereafter. Many had been lost in the war, and marine diesel engines had finally matured as an economical and viable alternative to steam power. The diesel engine had far better thermal efficiency than

20128-466: Was at its height, came to assert overall control over design of the ship—a state of affairs that would have far-reaching consequences for the company. Construction was carried out in a specially adapted dry dock in Bristol , England. Brunel was given a chance to inspect John Laird 's 213-foot (65 m) (English) channel packet ship Rainbow —the largest iron- hulled ship then in service—in 1838, and

20276-479: Was by far the largest vessel afloat. Brunel's last major project, SS  Great Eastern , was built in 1854–1857 with the intent of linking Great Britain with India, via the Cape of Good Hope , without any coaling stops. This ship was arguably more revolutionary than her predecessors. She was one of the first ships to be built with a double hull with watertight compartments and was the first liner to have four funnels. She

20424-521: Was completed in 1975. Among the main commodities are wheat and other grains, mainly for export. As of 2016, the Columbia ranked third, behind the Mississippi and Paraná rivers, among the world's largest export corridors for grain. The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens caused mudslides in the area, which reduced the Columbia's depth by 25 feet (7.6 m) for a 4-mile (6.4 km) stretch, disrupting Portland's economy. Efforts to maintain and improve

20572-605: Was entitled to possess and/or study the remains. Many different Native Americans and First Nations peoples have a historical and continuing presence on the Columbia. South of the Canada–US ;border, the Colville , Spokane , Coeur d'Alene , Yakama , Nez Perce , Cayuse , Palus , Umatilla , Cowlitz , and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs live along the US stretch. Along the upper Snake River and Salmon River ,

20720-402: Was established in the 1850s by John Elder , but it was clear that triple expansion engines needed steam at, by the standards of the day, very high pressures. The existing boiler technology could not deliver this. Wrought iron could not provide the strength for the higher pressures. Steel became available in larger quantities in the 1870s, but the quality was variable. The overall design of boilers

20868-452: Was fitted with two side-lever steam engines from the firm of Maudslay, Sons & Field , producing 750 indicated horsepower between them. The ship proved satisfactory in service and initiated the transatlantic route, acting as a model for all following Atlantic paddle-steamers. The Cunard Line 's RMS  Britannia began her first regular passenger and cargo service by a steamship in 1840, sailing from Liverpool to Boston. In 1845

21016-557: Was improved in the early 1860s, with the Scotch-type boilers – but at that date these still ran at the lower pressures that were then current. The first ship fitted with triple expansion engines was Propontis (launched in 1874). She was fitted with boilers that operated at 150 pounds per square inch (1,000 kPa) – but these had technical problems and had to be replaced with ones that ran at 90 pounds per square inch (620 kPa). This substantially degraded performance. There were

21164-405: Was laid down) and was soon followed by all subsequent liners. Most larger warships of the world's navies were propelled by steam turbines burning bunker fuel in both World Wars, apart from obsolete ships with reciprocating machines from the turn of the century, and rare cases of usage of diesel engines in larger warships. Steam turbines burning fuel remained in warship construction until the end of

21312-416: Was soon converted to iron-hulled technology. He scrapped his plans to build a wooden ship and persuaded the company directors to build an iron-hulled ship. Iron's advantages included being much cheaper than wood, not being subject to dry rot or woodworm , and its much greater structural strength. The practical limit on the length of a wooden-hulled ship is about 300 feet, after which hogging —the flexing of

21460-472: Was submerged by the construction of The Dalles Dam, and the native fishing community was displaced. The affected tribes received a $ 26.8 million settlement for the loss of Celilo and other fishing sites submerged by The Dalles Dam. The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs used part of its $ 4 million settlement to establish the Kah-Nee-Ta resort south of Mount Hood. In 1977, 75 indigenous fishermen of

21608-456: Was the biggest liner throughout the rest of the 19th century with a gross tonnage of almost 20,000 tons and had a passenger-carrying capacity of thousands. The ship was ahead of her time and went through a turbulent history, never being put to her intended use. The first transatlantic steamer built of steel was SS  Buenos Ayrean , built by Allan Line Royal Mail Steamers and entering service in 1879. The first regular steamship service from

21756-399: Was the change from the paddle-wheel to the screw-propeller as the mechanism of propulsion. These steamships quickly became more popular, because the propeller's efficiency was consistent regardless of the depth at which it operated. Being smaller in size and mass and being completely submerged, it was also far less prone to damage. James Watt of Scotland is widely given credit for applying

21904-566: Was the world's first screw propeller -driven steamship for open water seagoing. She had considerable influence on ship development, encouraging the adoption of screw propulsion by the Royal Navy , in addition to her influence on commercial vessels. The first screw-driven propeller steamship introduced in America was on a ship built by Thomas Clyde in 1844 and many more ships and routes followed. The key innovation that made ocean-going steamers viable

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