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Show THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH. 19 pected to winter. His language is as follows: " In our journey across the desert, Mary's Lake, and the famous Buenaventura River, were two points on which I relied to recruit the animals and repose the party. Forming, agreeably to the best maps in my possession, a connected water- line from the Kocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, I felt no other anxiety than to pass safely across the intervening desert to the banks of the Buenaventura, where, in the softer climate of a more southern latitude, our horses might find grass to sustain them, and our-selves be sheltered from the rigors of winter and from the inhospitable desert."* Touching this question, Colonel Bonneville, in a letter to Lieutenant Warren on the subject of his ex-plorations in and west of the Rocky Mountains, uses the following language ; and, as it bears upon the fact as to whom should be accorded the credit of the dis-covery of the Great Basin, we think proper to make an extract from it: f " GiLA RIVER, K M., August 24, 1857. " DEAR SIR: I thank you for your desire to do me justice as regards my map and explorations in the Rocky Mountains. I started for the mountains in 1832. *****! Mt the mountains in July, 1836, and reached Fort Leavenworth, Missouri, the 6th of August following. During all this time I kept good account of the course and distances, with * Fremont's Report for 1843- 44, p. 205. See also pp. 196, 214, 219, 221, 226, 255. f Lieutenant Warren's Memoir, vol. xi.; Pac. R. R. Reports. |