INTKOIM CTION TO 



ill "Bonneville's Adventutvs/" hv AVashin-i.m Irvinjr. Colonol Bonneville, it would 



appear, was the first explorer to crow, in 1832, the Rocky Mountains into the vauYv 

 of Green River, with ir«,,<»ix x To cpmte from Irving: 



"On the 24th July, 1833, by his (Captain Bonneville's) orders, a brigade of 40 

 men set out from Given River Valley to explore the Great Salt Lake. They wore to 



their way, and to keep journals and make charts calculated to impart a knowledge 

 of the lake and the surronndin- country. All the resources of Captain Bonneville had 



the mountains, and ran-in- down to California, was as yet almost unknown; being 

 out of the buffalo rano-e, it was untraversrd l,v the trappJr, who preferred those part> 



Still, it was | 



. ili.> ahme paragraph. . lediied t<> the S ;1 eram,nl,> Standar.1. Tit.- 



ivasthediscoi 



Great Salt Lake, of Utah. The honor could not possibly ha\ e 1>< .n hesiowt d upon a worthier man. Can this geograph- 

 ical fact be now ascertained and settled beyond dispute ? Was Colonel Vas.jii, / the discoverer of that remarkable body 

 of water? My answer is, no. I not only doubt, but I emphatically d< I -,y. that sUtoment. A little more than a quarter 

 of a century ago I heard the very subject of the priority of its discovery debated by old mountaineers, almost in the 

 vicinity of the lake itself. To furnish better proof than unassisted memory, I send you the following extract from a 

 letter written by me in 1837, at the request of the venerable Skinner, and publish) .1 in the 8th volume of the American 

 Turf Register : 



" 'Here, for a time, I will end my description of the animate of the boundless prairies, and here, too, I will end this 

 hasty letter, after protesting, solemnly protest in <_'. against an act of ;nju>t ice done to a numerous, brave, ami adventurous 

 class of our western citizens, by onr much admired Irving, or by Captain Boi In the name of 



Sublette, Fitzpatrick, Fontinelle, Deippes, Bridger, and Campbell, I protest against the name 'Lake Bonneville,' giveu 

 by the author of « Astoria ' and the 'Rocky Mountains ' to that great inland sea, the ' Urimiah ' of our continent. In 

 the name of Ashley, who had described this lake eighteen or twenty years before Captain Bonneville ever crossed the 

 mountains, I protest against that name. What justice, what honor can there be, in claiming the right of naming that 

 ' wonder of the western waters' after Bonneville, when it had been found, circumambulated, ami trapped on as early as 

 1820 by Provost! This lake was once called 'Ashley/ and with much more propriety, high and respected as is the 

 authority of Irving. ' Fiat jiistitia.' ' 



b was the general f 



(?) " Captain Bonue\ i *& the crest of the Rocky M 



felt some degree of exultation in being the first individual that had crossed, north of the settled provinces of Mexk 

 from the waters of the Atlantic to those of the Pacific, with wagons. Mr, V. : i rprising leader 



the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, h id two or three j ears previously reached the valley of the Wind River, which li 

 on the northeast of the mountains, but had proceeded ores, rev. ed., p. 6 



