GREAT BASIN PROBLEMS 
223 
RESEARCH PROBLEMS OF THE GREAT BASIN ^ 
By Dr. John A. Widtsoe: 
Sometime President of University of Utah 
On that memorable summer morning of July 24, 1847, Brigham 
Young, coming over the mountain to the east of us, looked down 
upon the marvelous prospect which spread out before, and de¬ 
clared : 
‘This is the place!” 
When civilized man thus took possession of the Great Basin, he 
claimed one of the most interesting parts of the world. It was 
the last land of mystery in the United States; it lay in an environ¬ 
ment vastly different from that in which modern civilization had 
been born; it had resources for human good beyond the ordinary 
dreams of man; and it offered problems in its conquest, so com¬ 
plex and new, that the heart of the truth-seeker thrilled with the 
anticipation of the labor of solution. It is still only partly known. 
The scientist, seeker for truth, may yet revel in the new things 
that the Great Basin has in its keeping. 
The Great Basin of western North America is a closed, or in¬ 
terior, drainage basin, which includes the western half of Utah, 
nearly all of Nevada, very large areas in California, and southest- 
ern Oregon, and small areas in southeastern Idaho and southwest¬ 
ern Wyoming. The extreme length of the Great Basin, north to 
south, is nearly 900 miles, and the greatest width, east to west, is 
nearly 600 miles. The area of the Great Basin is at least 210,000 
square miles, or a full fifteenth part of continental United States, 
not including Alaska. The Sierra Nevada forms the western, and 
the Wasatch Range the eastern boundary of this vast tract. 
The corrugated topography of the Great Basin is characterized 
1 Address delivered before the American Association for the Advancement of 
Science, Salt Lake City Meeting. 
