34 EXPLORATIONS FROM A. D. 1832 TO A. D. 1844. 
before this these heads of rivers were scattered far and wide. I gave Mr. Washington Irving 
the three maps I mention; and as the publication was by Carey, Lea & Blanchard, the originals 
may, perhaps, be found with them. The earliest editions have maps of my making. The one 
you refer to me I have no doubt is one of the three maps I made. 
* Yours, &c., 
"B. L. E. BONNEVILLE, 
** Colonel 3d Infantry. 
“Lieut. G. K. Warren, Topographical Engineers." 
A reduced copy of the map of the Great Basin and sources of the Yellowstone are given 
with this memoir. Application was made to Mr. Irving and to the publishers of the work to 
obtain, if possible, the original maps, but they could not be found, as so considerable a period 
had elapsed that they had been lost or mislaid. 
Colonel Benton, in his ''Thirty Years View," page 580, says of Frémont’s second expe- 
dition: ‘He was at Fort Vancouver, guest of the hospitable Dr. McLaughlin, governor of the 
British Hudson Bay Fur Company, and obtained from him all possible information upon his 
intended line of return, faithfully given, but which proved to be disastrously erroneous in its 
leading and governing feature." * * * * “All maps up to that time had shown this 
region traversed from east to west, from the base of the Rocky mountains to the bay of San 
Francisco, by a great river called the Buenaventura, which may be translated the good chance. 
Frémont believed in it, and his plan was to reach it before the dead of winter, and then 
hibernate upon it.’ 
It is evident that Colonel Benton had never seen Captain a s map, or he would not 
have written this paragraph. 
EARLY DISCOVERIES IN THE GREAT BASIN. 
The exploration of the Great Salt lake was a favorite object with Captain Bonneville; 
though called Lake Bonneville by Mr. Irving, its existence was well known to the traders and 
trappers on his arrival in that country, as was also that of the Ogden’s or Mary’s river. A 
short account of the first discoveries in this region may not be inappropriate in this place. 
In Captain Stansbury’s report, page 151, he says: ‘‘The existence of a large lake of salt 
water, somewhere amid the wilds west of the Rocky mountains, seems to have been known, 
vaguely, as long as 150 years since. As early as 1689 the Baron la Hontan * * * wrote 
an account of discoveries in this region, which was published in the English language in 1735.”’ 
This narrative of La Hontan of his journey up ‘‘ La Rivière Longue,” flowing into the Missis- 
sippi from the west, has for more than a century been considered fabulous. It is sporen of 
even by Captain Stansbury as an ''imaginative voyage up this most imaginary river,” up 
which La Hontan claims to have sailed. for six weeks without reaching the source. During 
this voyage he learned from four Mozeemlek slaves belonging to the Indians living on the river 
“that, at the distance of one hundred and fifty leagues from the place he then was, their prin- 
cipal river empties itself into a salt lake of 300 leagues i in circumference, the mouth of which 
is two leagues broad; that the lower part of that river is adorned with six noble cities, 
surrounded with stone cemented with fat earth; that the houses of these cities have no roofs, 
but are open above, like a platform, as you see them drawn on the map; that, besides the 
above-mentioned cities, there are above a hundred towns, great and small, round that sort of 
sea, upon which they — with such boats as you see drawn on the map," &c. 
