34 VIEWS OF NATURE. 



tive projections of the Siberian traveller, the Abbe Chappe,-* 

 were based on mere and for the most part on very inac- 

 curate estimates of the foils of rivers) ; it has afforded me 

 special satisfaction to find the graphical method of represent- 

 ing the earth's configuration in a vertical direction, that is, 

 the elevation of solid over fluid parts, achieved on so vast 

 a scale. In the mean latitudes of 37° to 43° the Rocky 

 Mountains present, besides the great snow-crowned summits, 

 whose height may be compared to that of the Peak of Teneriffe, 

 elevated plateaux of an extent scarcely to be met with in any 

 other part of the world, and whose breadth from east to west 

 is almost twice that of the Mexican highlands. From the range 

 of the mountains, which begin a little westward of Fort Lara- 

 mie, to the further side of the Wahsatch Mountains, the eleva- 

 tion of the soil is uninterruptedly maintained from five to 

 upwards of seven thousand feet above the sea's level ; nay, 

 this elevated portion occupies the whole space between the 

 true Rocky Mountains and the Californian snowy coast range 

 from 34° to 45° north latitude. This district, which is a 

 kind of broad longitudinal valley, like that of the lake of Titi- 

 caca. has been named The Great Basiii by J oseph Walker and 

 Captain Fremont, travellers well acquainted with these west- 

 ern regions. It is a terra incognita of at least 8000 geo- 

 graphical (or 128,000 English) square miles, arid, almost 

 uninhabited, and full of salt lakes, the largest of which is 

 3940 Parisian (or 4200 English) feet above the level of the 

 sea, and is connected with the narrow Lake Utah,f into which 

 the " Rock River" {Timpan Ogo in the Utah language) pours 

 its copious stream. Father Escalante, in his wanderings from 

 Santa Fe del Nuevo Mexico to Monterey in New California, 

 discovered Fremont's "Great Salt Lake" in 1776, and con- 

 founding together the river and the lake, called it Laguna de 

 Timpanogo. Under this name I inserted it in my map of 

 Mexico, which gave rise to much uncritical discussion regard- 

 ing the assumed non-existence of a large inland salt lake,! — a 



* Chappe d'Auteroche, Voyage en Siberia, fait en 1761. 4 vols., 

 4to., Paris, 1768. 



f Fremont, Report of the Exploring Expedition, pp. 154, and 

 273-276. 



% Humboldt, Atlas Mexicain, plch. 2; Essai politique sur la Nouv. 

 Esp., t. i. p. 231 ; t. ii. pp. 243, 313, and 420. Fremont, Upper Cali- 

 fornia, 1848, p. 9. See also Duflot de Mofras, Exploration de V Oregon, 

 1844, t. ii. p. 140. 



