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January 21, 1846. 

 The President in the Chair. 



Rev. Edward E. Hale gave a short account of the recent 

 Journey of Discovery under the command of Capt. Fremont, 

 and of its scientific resuhs, which he considered to possess 

 extraordinary interest. 



Capt. Fremont's party, consisting of thirty-nine men, left Kansas, 

 a frontier village of Missouri, on the 31st of May, 1843. Varying 

 from the route of the year before, and that pursued by the emi- 

 grants, they advanced towards the Rocky Mountains by the 

 Republican Fork of the Platte River. Appointing a rendezvous 

 at St. Vrain's, Lieut. Fremont and a light party made a detour of 

 a hundred miles to the southward, hoping to find a more southerly 

 pass through the eastern ridge of the mountains, than that usually 

 followed. 



In this expectation he was disappointed. Having collected his 

 whole party again, they continued westward, across the Laramie 

 plains, by a new route ; and, by another detour, he, with a light 

 party, visited the Great Salt Lake, a saturated solution of salt, 

 on which he and his crew were probably the first navigators. 

 He rejoined his party at Hall's, on the Snake River, and thence 

 followed very nearly the great emigrant road to the mouth of the 

 Columbia. This road is now marked out with perfect distinct- 

 ness, and is constantly travelled. From the Columbia, he under- 

 took, in mid winter, to travel south to California : not near the sea 

 coast, as a party under Mr. Eld, of the Exploring Expedition, had 

 done, but eastward of the Cascade chain of mountains, and be- 

 tween one and two hundred miles from the coast. His objects 

 were to visit St. Mary's Lake, to find the great rivers Sacramento 

 and Buenaventura, which are laid down, on the maps, as draining 

 all northern Mexico and southern Oregon. 



This bold and dangerous portion of his journey establishes a 

 very important geographical fact. No such rivers exist as the 

 Sacramento and Buenaventura of the maps. They drain only a 

 district lying near the coast, while the greater part of the north 

 of Mexico and the south of Oregon is not drained by waters 

 running into the Pacific. The Columbia is the only river which 



