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Show 16 however, with the merger of the Northwest Company with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821. By 1824 the command of the profitable Snake Country Bcpedition was given to the intrepid and capable Peter Skene Ogden who became famous for his frequent exploring tours into unknown lands and for his numerous discoveries. Ogden's first expedition in 1824-25 penetrated the Great Basin as far south as the site of modern Ogden, Utah which city bears his name. In September of 1826, Ogden's brigade explored the extreme northwestern Great Basin in Oregon and northern California for the first time; his exploring activities in 1827-28 were in the same region. Ogden's next expedition was one of the most significant. It was on this tour in 1828-29 that Ogden discovered the Humboldt River, historically one of the most important streams in the Great Basin. Within fifteen years the Humboldt would become the overland highway across the Great Basin to the Pacific coast. The brigade left the Columbia in October 1828 and trapped its way south entering the Great Basin in present southeastern Oregon. Continuing south, they reached the Humboldt River on November 9 near the site of present Winnemucca, Nevada. Ogden and, indeed, all of the trappers of this era had no conception of the true geography of the Great Basin. The streams they found were usually assigned to the various river systems of the Pacific slope. In the case of the Humboldt, Ogden speculated the river was a tributary of the Owyhee in the Columbia system.2 The idea of a land of interior drainage was foreign to the mountain men. After exploring the river east toward its headwaters, the party turned south near present-day Elko, Nevada, then east to the Great Salt Lake which they viewed on Christmas day. Proceeding north and east they intersected the Malad River in present southeastern Idaho. In April of 1829 Ogden again |