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Show 160 particular mountain is central to the location. An examination of tbe instructions given to both Bean and Dame would also tend to confirm the assumption that Young had a particular location in mind. William H. Dame was told to take his company west from Painter (Pinto) Creek and then north. Bean had been instructed to explore the desert valleys west of Fillmore and Beaver.25. If both Bean and Dame followed their instructions, they would wind up in approximately the same place. Later instructions to Bean ordered him to explore southwest of their location in Snake Valley. From these instructions given to his exploring companies, it would seem that Brigham Young's legendary oasis would lie about two hundred miles west of Beaver City. This calculation also agrees with the prophet's desire to locate a place beyond the barrier of a desert requiring eight days to cross. It is evident that Brigham Young had at least a general idea of where this refuge was to be found if not a precise one. A look at Young's "Sebastopol" speech gives more elaborate detail of the place he was considering. It was an area "larger than any of the Eastern States, that no white man knows anything about.... It is a desert country with long distances from water to water.... Probably there is room in that region for 500,000 persons to live scattered about where there is good grass and water.1" It is clear that Brigham Young did not see the refuge as one large fertile area, but rather a series of oases scattered across a very large area. Unfortunately, be grossly misjudged tbe capabilities of this land and its suitability for settlement. The reasons advanced for Young's misconception of the Basin's interior desert lands are circumstantial. However, the case is strong that Young was deceived by the same factors that caused the Death Valley company to think it could quickly and easily cross the Great Basin west of present-day Cedar City. |
