374 FORMER BOUNDARIES THE GREAT BASIN UTAH. 



thousand six hundred and ninety one square miles, or, two hundred 

 and eighty seven million, one hundred and sixty two thousand two 

 hundred and forty acres of land. "In other words, our original 

 territory of Upper California, embraced twelve hundred and two 

 square miles more than the States of Maine, Vermont, New Hamp- 

 shire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Penn- 

 sylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin, 

 combined !" 1 



The California Convention, in shaping their new State, thought 

 it advisable to diminish this unwieldy empire, a large portion of 

 which was, in truth, divided by the evident decree of nature from 

 the Pacific region. Between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra 

 Nevada, at an elevation of between four thousand and five thousand 

 feet above the sea lies that singular geographical formation which 

 was first explored by Colonel Fremont, and is known as the Great 

 Basin. This is now comprehended in the Territory of Utah. It is 

 about five-hundred miles in diameter, counting either from north to 

 south or east to west ; and, imprisoned on all sides by mountains, 

 it has its own complete system of rivers and lakes, all of which 

 have no outlet to the Oceans on either side of the continent. Its 

 steep interior hills and mountains are covered with forests, and rise 

 abruptly from a base of ten or twenty miles to a height of seven or 

 ten thousand feet above the level of the sea. Many large bodies 

 of water are confined in its capacious bosom, and among them are 

 the Utah and Great Salt Lakes. The shores of the latter, extend- 

 ing in length about seventy miles, have been seized and occupied 

 by the Mormons as the seat and centre of their future State. Im- 

 mense quantities of salt are gathered from its banks when the wa- 

 ters of this inland sea recede during the dry seasons of these lofty 

 plains and table lands. The waters of the Utah, however, are per- 

 fectly fresh ; and, near the w r estern edge of the Basin, is found the 

 picturesque Pyramid Lake which is also shut in by mountains, and 

 is remarkable for its depth and transparent purity. 



To the southward of this, bordering the base of the Sierra 

 Nevada, within the Basin, is a long range of lakes ; while many 

 copious rivers disperse their water throughout its ungenial expanse. 

 The chief of these streams is Humboldt River, which rises in the 



1 See the admirable "Paper upon California" read by that accomplished scholar 

 J. Morrison Harris, before the Maryland Historical Society in March 1849. It has 

 been published and forms, in the estimation ofcompetant judges, the best resume 

 and most philosophical disquisition upon California that has been hitherto issued 

 from the press. 



