14 EXPLORATIONS ACEOSS THE GEEAT BASIN OF UTAH. 



tills journey in the Spanish language is to be found in the rare and valuable library of 

 Col. Peter Force, city of Washington, to which, agreeably to his well-known liberality, 

 I have had ready access, and from which has been extracted for this report the valu- 

 able summary to be found, marked Appendix R, and for which I am indebted to the 

 zealous co-operation of Mr. Philip Harry of the Bureau of Topographical Engineers. 

 There will also be found in Mr. Harry's paper an extract from the manuscript, descrip- 

 tive of Lake Utah and its valley, which Escalante explored as far north, doubtless, as- 

 the Timpanogos River (by him called the Rio San Antonio de Padua), and an allusion 

 to the outlet of Lake Utah into a large body of salt water farther north, without 

 question Great Salt Lake. 



The destination of Escalante, his journal shows, was Monterey, on the Pacific 

 coast ; but being forced, doubtless by the desert immediately west of Lake Utah, to 

 take the so-called southern or Los Angeles route, which Bonneville's party in 1834 

 and Fremont in 1844 followed, and finding that, while making a great deal of south- 

 ing, he had made but little progress toward Monterey, his provisions giving out, and 

 he fearing the approach of winter, with some difficulty he prevailed upon his party to 

 abandon the idea of reaching Monterey, and to return to Santa Fe by the way of the 

 villages of the Moquis and of Zuni. (See the map of his route, Plate I, Appendix R.) 



The next authentic record which shows that any portion of the Great Basin sys- 

 tem was explored at an early date is to be found on the map entitled Appendiente al 

 Diario queformo el P. F. Pedro Font del Viaye que Uzo a Monterey y Puerto de San Fran- 

 cisco, y del Viaye que Uzo el P. Garces al Moqui, U P. F. Petrus Font fecit Tubutana anno 

 1777; " which may be freely translated as follows: "A supplement to the diary of Father 

 F. Pedro Font's journey to Monterey and San Francisco, and of Father Garces's to 

 Moqui, executed by P. F. Petrus Font, at Tubutana, in the year 1777." b 



According to this map, it appears that Father Garces traveled as early as 1777 

 (Humboldt says in 1773)° from the mission of San Gabriel, near the Pacific coast, in 

 California, to Oraybe, one of the villages of the Moquis, and that his route was along 

 the Rio de los Matires (evidently, from its position, the Mojave). Fremont and others 

 supposed that the Mojave was a tributary of the Colorado, and therefore did not be- 

 long to the Great Basin system ; but this idea was exploded by Lieutenant WUliam- 



(b) A copy of this map is in the Bureau of Topograpl ical ] igineers, it having been furnished by Capt. E. O. C. 

 Ord, Third Artillery, from an original one in the archives of California, and is quite interesting as showing the large 

 number of Spanish settlements in Middle Sonora at the time of the travels of Fathers Font and Garces, and the exact 

 routes explored by them. 



According to Humboldt, Father Garces was the principal personage in these explorations, and to Father Font were 

 intrusted the observations for I.< Lfcude. Qwonhow, in his Oregon and California, 4th ed.,p. 114, speaking of the 

 [journals of Friars Escalante and Domiugnez, and of Friars Garces and Font, says, "Thoy are still preserved in manu 

 script in Mexico, where they have been consulted by Humboldt and other travelers, but they are, from all accounts of 

 no value." In regard to the journal of Escalante, Mr. Greenhow's criticism is unjust, for not only is this journal written 

 111 a '' i;un - un| ' 1 ' ,,ut ifc abound* in excellent and apparently just observations and facts- and 



it is wonderful that the courses and distances given by him from Utah Lake back to Santa Fe,by way of Oraybe and 

 Zam, should plot so correctly and should agree so well as they do with our present maps. And in regard to the journal 

 of 1 riars Garces and Font, Humboldt, m speaking of the Chronica from which he derives his information respecting 

 the travels of these monks, expressly states that "it forms a large folio v 

 of an extract being made from it." ] 

 tribes inhabiting California, Sonora, 

 Spain, vol. II, p. 253.) 



(c) See his New Spain, vol. II, r 



