BARON LA HONTAN. 151 



CHAPTER VIII. 



EARLY KNOWLEDGE OP THE EXISTENCE OP A BODY OP SALT WATER 

 IN THIS REGION, BY BARON LA HONTAN. — SURVEY OP THE GREAT 

 SALT LAKE. , 



The opening of the spring at length enabling us to prepare 

 for a renewal of active operations in the field, the opportunity 

 was eagerly embraced, since upon the completion of the survey 

 before the setting in of cold weather depended the return of the 

 party to their homes before the recurrence of winter. 



The season was now approaching when it would become our 

 duty to enter upon a critical examination of this interesting and 

 hitherto almost unknown region, and the remarkable body of 

 water to which it is indebted for so much of the interest which 

 attaches to it. It may not, therefore, be deemed inappropriate to 

 look back and see what ideas prevailed in regard to it during the 

 infant period of our national geography. 



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 one hundred and fifty years since. As early as 

 May, 1689, the Baron La Hontan, "lord-lieutenant of the French 

 colony at Placentia in New Foundland," "wrote an account of dis- 

 coveries in this region, which was published in the English lan- 

 guage in 1735. 



In the letter, which is dated at " Missilimakinac," he gives " an 

 account of the author's departure from and return to Missilimaki- 

 nac ; a description of the Bay of Puants, and its villages ; an 

 ample description of the beavers, followed by the journal of a 

 remarkable voyage upon the Long River, and a map of the adja- 

 cent country." 



Leaving Mackinaw, he passed into Green Bay, which he calls 

 "the Bay of Pouteouotamis," and arrived at the mouth of the 

 Fox River, which he describes as " a little deep sort of a river 

 which disembogues at a place where the water of the lake swells 

 three feet high in twelve hours, and decreases as much in the 

 same compass of time." 



