FIG. 51.—SAGE-BRUSH IN THE GREAT BASIN
Among the many geographical discoveries of the expedition was the demonstration of the existence of the Great Basin. In his report, Frémont, while speaking of its vast sterile valleys and of the Indians which inhabit them, says: "That it is peopled we know, but miserably and sparsely ... dispersed in single families ... eating seeds and insects, digging roots (hence their name) [Digger Indians], such is the condition of the greater part. Others are a degree higher and live in communities upon some lake or river from which they repulse the miserable Diggers.
"The rabbit is the largest animal known in this desert, its flesh affords a little meat.... The wild sage is their only wood, and here it is of extraordinary size—sometimes a foot in diameter and six or eight feet high. It serves for fuel, for building material, for shelter for the rabbits, and for some sort of covering for the feet and legs in cold weather. But I flatter myself that what is discovered, though not enough to satisfy curiosity, is sufficient to excite it, and that subsequent explorations will complete what has been commenced."
[THE STORY OF GREAT SALT LAKE]
The most interesting geographical feature of Utah is the Great Salt Lake. Few tourists now cross the continent without visiting the lake and taking a bath in its briny waters. This strange body of water has, however, been slowly growing smaller for some years, and probably will in time disappear. A study of the history of the lake may throw some light upon the important question of its possible disappearance, and it will certainly bring out many interesting facts.
We do not know with certainty who was the first white man to look upon this inland sea, although it is supposed to have been James Bridger, a noted trapper, who in 1825 followed Bear River down to its mouth. He tasted the water and found it salt, a fact which encouraged him in the belief that he had found an arm of the Pacific Ocean.
More than two hundred years ago there were vague ideas about a salt lake situated somewhere beyond the Rocky Mountains. In 1689 Baron Lahontan published an account of his travels from Mackinac to the Mississippi River and the region beyond. He states that he ascended a westerly branch of the river for six weeks, until the season became too late for farther progress. He reports meeting savages who said that one hundred and fifty leagues beyond there was a salt lake, "three hundred leagues in circumference—its mouth stretching a great way to the southward."
This imaginative story aroused interest in the West. In a book published in 1772, devoted to a description of the province La Louisiane, the possibility of water communication with the South Sea is discussed as follows: "It will be of great convenience to this country, if ever it becomes settled, that there is an easy communication therewith, and the South Sea, which lies between America and China, and that two ways: by the north branch of the great Yellow River, by the natives called the river of the 'Massorites' (Missouri), which hath a course of five hundred miles, navigable to its head, or springs, and which proceeds from a ridge of hills somewhat north of New Mexico, passable by horse, foot, or wagon, in less than half a day. On the other side are rivers which run into a great lake that empties itself by another navigable river into the South Sea. The same may be said of the Meschaouay, up which our people have been, but not so far as the Baron Lahontan, who passed on it above three hundred miles almost due west, and declares it comes from the same ridge of hills above mentioned, and that divers rivers from the other side soon make a large river, which enters into a vast lake, on which inhabit two or three great nations, much more populous and civilized than other Indians; and out of that lake a great river disembogues into the South Sea."
In 1776 Father Escalante travelled from Santa Fé far to the north and west. He met Indians who told him of a lake the waters of which produced a burning sensation when placed upon the skin. This was probably Great Salt Lake, but it is not thought that he himself ever saw it. The Escalante Desert, in southern Utah, once covered by the waters of the lake, is named after this explorer.
Nothing more seems to have been learned of the lake after its discovery by Bridger until in 1833 Bonneville, a daring leader among the trappers, organized a party for its exploration. Washington Irving, in his history of Captain Bonneville, says of the party, "A desert surrounded them and stretched to the southwest as far as the eye could reach, rivalling the deserts of Asia and Africa in sterility. There was neither tree, nor herbage, nor spring, nor pool, nor running stream, nothing but parched wastes of sand, where horse and rider were in danger of perishing."