In 1836, Congress approved the sum of $300,000 for a purely
scientific exploratory expedition. The expedition, headed by
Charles Wilkes, left in 1838 and returned in 1842. The
scientific expedition visited at least
cursorily most every non-civilised coastal area in the world,
including the Pacific Northwest in 1841. Other areas visited include South America,
New Zealand, Hawaii, the East Indies,
Australia, and South Pacific islands too numerous to list.
This expedition also provided the first proof of the existence of the continent of
Antarctica.
A large number of Puget Sound names which are
still in use today were provided by Wilkes' expedition, Commencement Bay
(where he started his charting of the sound) and
Elliott Bay among them.
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From:
Washington State University Digital Map Collection Website, 2002
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