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Show 165 apocryphal mountain range the place he had instructed Evans company to go, of which he later remarked, "they did not go to the mountain where they were sent." (Italics mine.) It is entirely probable that Young was searching for the oasis Fremont was sure existed. Fremont's reports were given wide credibility. Fremont was the Pathfinder; he was the authority to which others turned to. If Brigham Young was deceived by Fremont's map and reports, he was certainly not the only one. It is now beyond doubt that Fremont's 1848 map had a powerful influence over the Forty-niners who turned off the California road to strike out across the Basin at the same place Colonel Dame began his trek nine years later. After the goldseekers listened to Captain Smith's recommendations in favor of trying the new route described by Barney Ward, someone pulled out a copy of Fremont's map. L. B. Lorton, a member of the company, described the incident this way in I85O: Fremont's map was perused by the knowing, and sure enough, he had seen a high range stretching east and west, but did not explore it, and then they consulted the matter thus: Now, says they, wherever there is a chain of high mountains there must be snow, and wherever there is snow there must be streams eminating therefrom,-so we will not go the out of tbe way, the Spanish trail, but the short and expeditious route to the mines,...-" Asahel Bennett was also to admit to James H. Martineau, while exploring the 38 desert in I858, that it was Fremont's map that had lured them into the area. While Fremont was correct in assuming there would necessarily be river and lake systems in the interior of the Basin, he greatly overestimated the amount of water available. All of the major rivers and streams in the Great Basin, with the exception of the Humboldt, eminate from the high mountains on the perimeter. But contrary to Fremont's reasoning, these great ranges |