OCR Text |
Show 164 WATERS OF THE GREAT BASIN." A large area to the north of this range and west of the present locations of Fillmore and Beaver is labelled "UNEXPLORED." Ibis was the same unexplored region that Brigham Young ordered the White Mountain Expedition to investigate. Fremont reasoned that the Great Basin must have a high rim completely encircling it if its waters were to remain isolated from the streams of the Pacific slope. He therefore saw what he believed had to be, and he put it into his map and report. In Fremont's mind, the great east-west range was an established fact, "...their summits white with snow, were often visible," he declared with this observation: They "must have turned water to the north as well as to the south."35 (Italics mine.) The fact that Fremont bad not explored the Basin's interior valleys did not stop him from speculating about them in his report of 18^5: Of its {the Great Basins] interior, but little is known. It is called a desert, and, from what I saw, sterility may be its prominent characteristic; but where there is so much water, there must be some oasis.•.. where there is so much snow, there must be streams; and where there is no outlet, there must be lakes to hold the accumulated waters,... In this eastern part of the Basin, containing Sevier, Utah, and the Great Salt Lakes, and the rivers and creeks falling into them, we know there is good soil and good grass adapted to civilized settlements. (Italics mine.) In other words, if fertile watered valleys exist in the Great Basin along the base of the Wasatch, there must be similar fertile oases at the foot of the supposed east-west range stretching four hundred miles across the breadth of the Basin. Was this the conclusion reached by Brigham Young? Was this the area he was describing to his followers when he told them he knew of places where "I can hide this people and a thousand times more"? And was Fremont's |