36 EXPLORATIONS FROM A. D. 1832 To A. D. 1844. 
of the strictest integrity and truthfulness. I have known ‘both since 1826. James Bridger 
was the first discoverer of Great Salt lake. 
“Iam happy in being able to give you the information and of the character that you wished for. 
** Your obedient servant, 
à “ROBERT CAMPBELL. 
“Lieut. G. K. WARREN, 
` “Topographical Engineers, Washington City. 
` * P. 8.—A party of the Hudson Bay Company trappers came to the same place in the summer 
of 1825, and met the party that had discovered the Salt lake that season." i 
The party of trappers from the Hudson Bay Company, bad to in the postscript to Mr. 
Campbell’s letter, was under the enterprising leader, Mr. Peter Ogden, who. discovered the 
Ogden's or Mary's river in 1825. One of Mr. Ogden's party took a woman for his wife from 
among the Indians found on this river, to whom the name of Mary was given. From this. 
circumstance the stream came to be called Mary's river. It is also called Ogden 8 river, after 
its discoverer. 
A portion of the Great Basin system was visited by Father Font ¢ as early as 177 ya near the | 
Mojave river, (which he called Rio de los Mortires.) . He followed. its course to the. place 
where it sinks, and then travelled east, crossing the Colorado at the Mojave valleys, and kept 
on as far as the Moquis villages. A copy of his map was procured i in California by Captain 
Ord, U. S. A., and is now on file in the Topographical Bureau. 
IRVING'S ASTORIA. 
۰ Astoria, or Anecdotes of an Enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains. By Washington Irving. 
Author’ s revised edition, complete in one volume. New York: G. P. Putnam.—1849." ۰ It contains 
a reduced copy of Wilkes’ map of Oregon, and is the only edition at my command. - 
"This beautifully written book, published first, I believe, in 1836, contains an account of the 
voyages and journey performed by Mr. Astor'sparties. One of these, under Messrs. Hunt and 
Crook, went, in 1811-12, from the Arikaree village, on the Missouri, at the mouth of Grand 
or ''Big river," westward, through the Black Hills and Big Horn mountains, to Wind river, and 
thence to the sources of the Snake or Lewis river, and down that stream to the Columbia. 
Very few persons have ever traversed these Black Hills, and this narrative, though vague, is the 
first one extant of a journey through them. On Lewis and Clarke’s map these hills have a 
northwest trend, as they also have on the map compiled by Captain Hood in 1839. In both 
cases, however, this direction was given from reports and not examination. On Major Long’s 
map Loin his first expedition their direction is placed nearly north. In Irving's Astoria, how- 
ever, we find Chapter XXVI beginning thus: ** Mr. Hunt and his party were now on the skirts 
of the Black Hills, or Black mountains as they are sometimes called, an extended chain lying 
about a hundred miles east ‘of the Rocky mountains, and stretching, in a northeast direction, 
from the south fork of the Nebraska or Platte river to the great north bend of the Missouri." 
This is the authority that sustains the representation of these hills as it has been madè on a 
the published maps of late years. I became convinced, by observati ti 
Nebraska in 1855, (though the hills were: oily ora ab a duitanco FORMEL KNEE end fe soil: 
