JOHN C. FREMONT. 243 



" To the Editors of the National Intelligencer. 



" GENTLEMEN : While the proceedings in Congress 

 are occupying public attention, more particularly 

 with the subject of a Pacific railway, I desire to 

 offer to your paper for publication some general 

 results of a recent winter-expedition across the 

 Rocky Mountains, confining myself to mere results, 

 in anticipation of a fuller report, with maps and 

 illustrations, which will necessarily require some 

 months to prepare. 



" The country examined was for about three-fourths 

 of the distance from the Missouri frontier, at the 

 mouth of the Kansas River, to the Valley of Para- 

 wan, at the foot of the Wahsatch Mountains, within 

 the rim of the Great Basin, at its southeastern bend 

 along and between the 38th and 39th parallels of 

 latitude ; and the whole line divides itself naturally 

 into three sections, which may be conveniently fol- 

 lowed in description. 



" The first or eastern section consists of the great 

 prairie-slope spreading from the base of the Sierra 

 Blanca to the Missouri frontier, about seven hun- 

 dred miles; the second or middle section compre- 

 hends the various Rocky Mountain ranges and in- 

 terlying valleys, between the termination of the 

 Great Plains, at the foot of the Sierra Blanca, and 



