G'VxNNETT.] HISTOEICAL. 709 



The agents of tlie fur companies and tlie trappers, of course, became 

 intimately acquainted witli tlie country, but their knowledge died with 

 them, and it w^as not until the year 1832 that anything like exploration 

 was attempted. In that year Captain Bonneville, of the United States 

 Army, having obtained a year's leave of absence, set out on a trading 

 and exploring expedition. His venture ^vas a private one, and his ex- 

 plorations w^ere made at his own expense. Starting from Fort Osage, 

 Missouri, he took the ^STorth Platte and Sweetwater route, crossing at 

 South Pass to the Green Eiver Basin. He took wagons as far as Horse 

 Creek, on Green Eiver, being the first to reach Pacific waters with 

 them. He spent three years wandering about in the northwest country 

 exploring, trading, and trapping. His travels extended to the Colum- 

 bia Eiver, in Oregon, in a northwest direction, and nearly to the mouth 

 of the Big Horn, towards the northeast, and his map represents, with 

 an approach to general correctness, the northern part of the Great 

 Basin, portions of California, most of Snake Eiv6r, the North Platte, 

 Big Horn, Yellowstone, and Missouri Elvers, with the country adjacent 

 to them. Ihe principal geographical features of my district, the Green, 

 Bear, Blackfoot, and Portneuf Elvers, are recognized. The map, how- 

 ever, is extremely faulty in geographical positions, many of them being 

 one, two, or more degrees out of place. Bonneville was unquestionably 

 the first to give the world definite, certain information regarding the 

 Great Basin. Previous to his time all that was known of it was vague 

 and visionary, the exaggerated tales of mountaineers and trappers. 



Following Bonneville, in 1842, came Fremont. On his first expedition 

 he crossed South Pass, and, skirting the southwest base of the Wind 

 Eiver Eange,he went to the head of Green Eiver Basin. Here, leaving 

 his main j)arty camped at one of the beautiful glacial lakelets which are 

 found at the base of the range, he, after much toil and trouble, succeeded 

 in reaching the summit of one of the highest peaks of the range, which, 

 has thenceforth borne his name. I ^aving accomplished this, which in those 

 early days was accounted a remarkable feat, he returned to the States. 

 On his second exj)edition, he crossed the continental watershed at South 

 Pass, and thence followed the present overland road down the Big Sandy 

 to the Green, and thence, in a southerly direction, to Fort Bridger. 

 Thence he went northwesterly, to Ham's Fork ("Muddy"), and from a 

 point near its head, probably on the course of the overland road, he de- 

 scended to the Bear. He followed the Bear to the Soda Springs, in 

 Southeastern Idaho, continued down it through Cache Yalley, and 

 finally reached the shores of Great Salt Lake. He made a i)artial recon- 

 naissance of the lake, in an India-rubber boat brought for the purpose j 

 but, pT-ovisions becoming scanty, he beat a hasty retreat northward, to 

 (old) Fort Hall, via the valley of the Malade (Eoseau or Eeed Eiver) 

 and the Portneuf. Thence he continued his route down the Snake 

 towards Oregon. 



Fremont was, on both these expeditions, well provided with instru- 

 ments, and his work is generally regarded as among the best done in 

 those early days. While the errors of some of his positions are great, 

 still they are no larger than was to be expected from the methods neces- 

 sarily employed. 



In 1849, Captain Stansbury, during the progress of his survey of the 

 Great Salt Lake, made two reconnaissances within the district under 

 consideration, one northward, up the Malade and down the Portneuf 

 to (old) Fort Hall, on the Snake river, near the mouth of the Portneuf, 

 and the other up the Bear into Cache Valley. 



In 1857 and 1858, extensive explorations were made in this region for 



