244 JOHN C. FREMONT. 



the Great Basin of the Parawan Valley and Wah- 

 satch Mountains, where the first Mormon settle- 

 ment is found, about four hundred and fifty miles ; 

 the third or western section comprehends the moun- 

 tainous plateau lying between the Wahsatch Moun- 

 tains and the Sierra Nevada, a distance of about 

 four hundred miles. 



" The country examined was upon a very direct 

 line, the travelled route being about one thousand 

 five hundred and fifty miles over an air-line distance 

 of about thirteen hundred miles. 



" The First Section. Four separate expeditions 

 across this section, made before the present one, and 

 which carried me over various lines at different sea- 

 sons of the year, enable me to speak of it with the 

 confidence of intimate knowledge. It is a plain of 

 easy inclination, sweeping directly up to the foot 

 of the mountains which dominate it as highlands, 

 do the ocean. Its character is open prairie, over 

 which summer travelling is made in every direc- 

 tion. 



"For a railway or a winter-travelling road, the 

 route would be, in consideration of wood, coal, 

 building-stone, water, and fertile land, about two 

 hundred miles up the immediate valley of Kansas, 

 (which might be made one rich continuous corn- 

 field,) and afterward along the immediate valley of 



