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Show WINTER 2013 UHQ pp 91-104_UHQ BReviews/pp.271-296 12/5/12 9:50 AM Page 93 BOOK REVIEWS One of the major goals of the research was to document the approximate number of emigrants who used the Central Overland Trail. Twenty-seven diaries were eventually located and are included in this book. A handful of these diaries have been previously published, but most were in editions that had limited distribution, so it is useful for researchers to have them collected in this volume. The diaries cover the years from 1859 to 1868. The collection includes eleven diaries by females. In Petersen’s judgment, these diaries are the most interesting and I agree with this opinion. One of the most detailed diaries in this book is by Delia Thompson Brown. Brown’s diary is rich in details of day-to-day travel across the desert. Although water and grass were scarce, the beauty of the desert did not escape her notice. On August 3, 1860, she wrote: “A bright beautiful morning and Oh such a glorious sunrise. The air is so bracing and pure but some complain of cold. It just suits me—so much better than the valley climate we have had” (120). Petersen concludes that the diaries in this book establish the fact that more emigrants than were previously thought used the Central Overland Route and makes this book a significant contribution to Western trails history. No doubt this book will stimulate interest in searching for additional diaries of this route. Petersen is an expert on this trail and his some eight hundred footnotes fill out details of diary entries, which by the nature of a travel diary are generally brief. Nine maps are grouped at the beginning of the diaries. These maps are among the clearest and most informative I have ever seen, and, again, can serve as a model for trail historians. I would like to conclude by noting that this book is dedicated to the memory of the late Gregory M. Franzwa. Franzwa was a superb trails histor ian and a pr incipal founder of the Oregon-California Trails Association, one of the most active organizations dedicated to interpreting and preserving this historic trail. This is a fitting memorial. PETER H. DELAFOSSE Salt Lake City Cleaving the Unknown World:The Powell Expeditions and the Scientific Exploration of the Colorado Plateau. Edited by Don D. Fowler. (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press/Utah State Historical Society, 2012. xx + 251 pp. Paper, $24.95.) ROY WEBB IN HIS FOREWORD to Cleaving the Unknown describes John Wesley Powell’s 1869 and 1871 explorations of the Green and Colorado rivers as “among the most significant, stirring and well documented in American history” (ix). Webb also points out that from these 93 |
