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Show 168 tbe fate of the Death Valley company which bad gone into the area, Brigham Young would s t i l l entertain notions of f e r t i l e valleys at the foot of a great mountain range spanning the breadth of the Basin. But myths die hard. So much credence had been given t o Fremont's e a r l i e r theories of an east-west mountain range that Simpson found i t necessary t o contradict them in his Report of Explorations in 1859* a year after the White Mountain Expedition was sent into the region by Brigham Young. 42 (italics mine.) The voices clamoring for the central railroad route to the Pacific coast were loud in keeping the Fremont myth alive and well into the 1850s. Early in the decade, the various sections of the Eastern States began competing for the terminus of the proposed trancontinental railroad. Each section advocted a southern, central, or northern route which would bring the railhead to their area. The champion of the central route t o the pacific was tbe powerful Senator Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri. Edward F. Beale (the same who l a t e r commanded the Camel Corps) was the superintendant of Indian a f f a i r s for California in 1852. While in Washington that summer, he became infatuated with Benton's plans for the central route. Beale was ordered back to his post in California in 1853 "by the most expeditious route," and, for the purpose of promoting the central railroad route, he chose to go overland, even though the sea route was quicker. Beale wa6 to send back reports to Benton who was t o use them t o further their cause. Along with his cousin, Gwinn Harris Heap, who served as a journalist, and a small party, they spent three months in the summer of 1853 traversing the country between Missouri and California. Heap's journal was f i r s t published serially in the National Intelligencer, but in 1854 i t was published in book form with numerous appendices a l l suggesting that the central route, which included the central Great Basin, was the best route for the Pacific railroad. The book, |