“The extraordinary abundance of the buffalo on the east side of the Rocky Mountains and their extraordinary diminution will be made clearly evident from the following statement: At any time between the years 1824 and 1836 a traveller might start from any given point South or North in the Rocky Mountain range, journeying by the most direct route to the Missouri River, and, during the whole distance, his road would be always among large bands of buffalo, which would never be out of his view until he arrived almost within sight of the abodes of civilization.
“At this time the buffalo occupy but a very limited space, principally along the Eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, sometimes extending at their Southern extremity to a considerable distance into the plains between the Platte and Arkansas Rivers and along the Eastern frontier of New Mexico as far South as Texas.
“The following statement, which I owe to the kindness of Mr. Sanford, a partner in the American Fur Company, will further illustrate this subject by extensive knowledge acquired during several years of travel through the region inhabited by the buffalo:
“‘The total amount of robes annually traded by ourselves and others will not be found to differ much from the following statement:
| ROBES. | |
| American Fur Company | 70,000 |
| Hudson Bay Company | 10,000 |
| All other companies, probably | 10,000 |
| Making a total of | 90,000 |
as an average annual return for the last eight or ten years.
“‘In the Northwest, the Hudson’s Bay Company purchased from the Indians but a very small number—their only market being Canada, to which the cost of transportation nearly equals the produce of the furs; and it is only within a very recent period that they have received buffalo robes in trade; and out of the great number of buffalo annually killed throughout the extensive regions inhabited by the Camanches and other kindred tribes, no robes whatever are furnished for trade. During only four months of the year (from November until March) the skins are good for dressing; those obtained in the remaining eight months being valueless to traders, and the hides of bulls are never taken off or dressed as robes at any season. Probably not more than one-third of the skins are taken from the animals killed, even when they are in good season, the labor of preparing and dressing the robes being very great, and it is seldom that a lodge trades more than twenty skins in a year. It is during the summer months, and in the early part of autumn that the greatest number of buffalo are killed, and yet at this time a skin is never taken for the purpose of trade.’...”
Fremont’s party at this time was on short allowance of food. Word had been sent to Carson to bring from Fort Hall a pack animal loaded with provisions, for there was no game in the country and it was hard to purchase food of any kind from the Indians.
On September 3 Carson rode into camp with provisions sufficient for a few days. The party kept on down Bear River, and on the 6th from the top of a hill saw the Great Salt Lake.
Up to this time this lake had been seen by comparatively few white people; in fact, only by trappers who were wintering through the country in search of beaver and who cared for geography only so far as it helped them on their way. No white man’s boat had ever floated on its dense waters, its islands had never been visited, and no one had made a survey of its shores or even passed all around it. Among trappers it was generally believed that while the lake had no visible outlet there was somewhere in it a tremendous whirlpool through which its waters flowed out by a subterranean channel to the ocean.