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Show THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH. 17 were extreme; for a part of the time they were nearly starved ; at length they made their way through them, and came down upon the plains of New Cali-fornia, a fertile region extending along the coast, with magnificent forests, verdant savannas, and prai-ries that look like stately parks. Here they found deer and other game in abundance, and indemnified themselves for past famine. They now turned to-ward the south, and passing numerous small bands of natives, posted upon various streams, arrived at the Spanish village and post of Monterey."* It would thus seem that Walker and his party failed in exploring around the west portion of the Great Salt Lake, on account of the desert in that region, and were forced to take a route along the northern section of the Great Basin to California; and it is represented by Irving that on their return they turned the Sierra Nevada at its southern ex-tremity. This being the case, it is likely they took the Spanish trail route, which Fremont, ten years after, in 1844, followed, and on which, at Vegas de Santa Clara, he overtook this same Joseph Walker, in charge of a trading party. The next authentic account we have of any ex-plorations of the Great Basin is from the report by Colonel Fremont of his expedition, in 1843 and 1844, to Oregon and California, through the South Pass, when, on the 6th of September of the former year, he attained the summit of a butte near the mouth of the Weber River, whence he saw for the first time * " Bonneville's Adventures," pp. 326- 328. 2 |