| OCR Text |
Show ;1lgihhiiig:<6f ";Naitial" History 'Tching The in Utah " ',Ralph,V' Chamberlin stJents of Nature in the Great Basin were the Th' first Indians: and the first teachers among these natives were the grandpa.rents ,upon whom rested primarily the duty of passing on to the children of each successive generation the knowledge of the living things and minerals of their tribal areas 'gained em pirically in the course of centuries. - Living close to and as part of nature, and impelled by ever the pressing necessity, the Indians of pre-pioneer days knew with of the and animals thoroughness. surprising region plants F rom the practical aspect, not only had they explored and ex hausted the food possibilities of the native fauna and £lora, but they also learned empirically much concerning the physiological action and medicinal properties of a large number of plants. Education among them for the most part consisted in the incul cation in the children of this accumulated and tested knowledge of nature. ... From the time Escalante and Dominguez on their return journey were forced to depend upon the Indians for food from native sources, the trappers, explorers and pioneers in the Great Basin region profited by knowledge of the natural products of the region gained from the Indians or, when the subsistence level Was low, suffered and sometimes perished from the lack of such knowledge. Planned' effor:ts to investigate systematically the fauna and flora of the area on the modern scientific basis began with the government exploring expeditions. The report of Fre mont's expedition of 1843-44 included the first published account of the fauna and' flora of the Great Basin area. This report and that of Stansbury's. Expedition published in 1852 became gUides and source books for travelers and pioneers, and although increas reports of subsequent expeditions made available an ever amount of authentic information, their use among the people ing in general was' limited, While the physical sciences" astronomy, physics (or na philosophy as then termed)" and chemistry were taught during the 18'50' s to small private classes by Orson Pratt and others, there seems to be no evidence of any formal teaching tural of botany, zoology, physiology or geology before 1861. On Sep tember 30 of that year, an adventurer arrived in Salt Lake City in the company of a French Canadian and made camp on the now occupied by the city and county building. That square 125 |
