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Show 167 before the White Mountain Expedition t o refute the errors made in the Report of l8**5 and the map of 1848. There were, in fact, some people who were promoting tbe erroneous aspects of Fremont's writings for their own i n t e r e s t s , although they had no way of knowing the Pathfinder was mistaken. After his expedition to the Great Basin in 1845-1846, Fremont published his Geographical Memoir upon Upper California which contained a more correct understanding of the contents of the Great Basin's i n t e r i o r . "The interior of tbe Great Basin, so far as has been explored, is found to be a succession of sharp mountain ranges and naked p l a i n s . . . . S t e r i l i t y . . . i s the absolute characteristic of the valleys between the mountains," admitted Fremont. But then he went on to say that although the Basin i s largely a desert, there were some "great exceptions.. .deserving tbe full examination of a thorough exploration." Besides the qualifications of his statements, there was no retraction of the earlier speculations of his 1845 Report. In fact, the one big error, that of creating a huge mythical mountain range was not only not dispelled in the later Fremont report, i t was enhanced. Fremont's Geographical Memoir was published "in Illustration of His Map of Oregon and California"-the very map that vividly portrayed the great east-west range J In 1854 Fremont's l a s t expedition crossed the Basin almost where his fabled range was purported to be. In a l e t t e r to the Daily National Intelligencer, which was l a t e r printed as a Senate document, he described the country as "a high tableland, b r i s t l i n g with mountains.... The valleys are dry and naked, without water or wood.... Springs are very rare and occasionally streams are at remote distances."1*1- But there was s t i l l no denial of his e a r l i e r assumptions about the Basin's i n t e r i o r , and t h i s report did not receive wide circulation. *n 1854 there were other voices being heard which advocated the oasis theory. I t might seem strange that in l i g h t of Fremont's l a t e r reports, and knowing |