COLONEL FREMONT'S EXPLORATIONS. THE EXPEDITION OF 1842 TO THE GREAT SOUTH PASS-THAT OF 1843-4 To the energy, talent, and enterprise, of the Hon. John Charles Fremont we stand indebted for the most important discoveries and surveys of the Western territory of the United States, since the great expedition of Lewis and Clarke. The first field of his public services was the country around the head-waters of the Mississippi, in the survey of which he acted as an assistant. After receiving the commission of a lieutenant in the corps of topographical engineers, he undertook an expedition, in 1842, under the instructions of government, to examine the country between the Missouri frontier and the Great South Pass, in the Rocky Mountains. On the 10th of June, the party, consisting of twenty-five men, most of whom were Canadian and Creole voyageurs, set out from a post ten miles above the mouth of the Kansas river. The celebrated Christopher Carson (known as Kit Carson) officiated as guide. Eight mule-carts, loaded with instruments and baggage, with a few spare horses and four oxen for provision, were the only encumbrances; the whole party, with the excep tion of the cart-drivers, were well armed and mounted. crossing the Kansas, the party took up their line of march over the prairie in a north-westerly direction to the Platte river, which was reached on the 26th, at a distance of more than three hundred miles from the point of departure. They fol lowed the course of the South Fork to Fort St. Vrain, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, where they arrived on the 10th After of July. Many interesting descriptions are recorded of the Indians encountered on the route: among other incidents, a spirited account is given of a buffalo hunt by a party of Arapahoes, whose village, on the Platte, was passed upon the 8th. As soon as they were conscious of danger, in the words of the narrative, "the buffalo started for the hills, but were intercepted and driven back toward the river, broken and running in every direction. The clouds of dust soon covered the whole scene, preventing us from having any but an occasional view. * At every instant, through the clouds of dust which the sun made luminous, we could see for a moment two or three buffalo dashing along, and close behind them an Indian with his long spear, or other weapon, and instantly again they disappeared." * Fremont with his little company reached the South Pass about the middle of August, and commenced a scientific exploration of the rugged mountain district through which it leads. "He not only fixed the locality and character of that great pass, through which myriads are now pressing to Califor nia, but defined the astronomy, geography, botany, geology, meteorology, of the country, and designated the route since followed, and the points from which the flag of the Union is now flying from a chain of wilderness fortresses. His report was printed by the Senate, and translated into foreign languages, and the scientific world looked on Fremont as one of its benefactors."* The expedition of 1843-4 was far more extensive, interesting, and important than the one which preceded it. Its object was "to connect the reconnoissance of 1842 with the surveys of Commander Wilkes on the coast of the Pacific ocean, so as to give a connected survey of the interior of our continent." In entering upon this arduous undertaking, Colonel Fremont determined to attempt a new route over the Rocky Mountains, southward of the main pass, in hopes of discovering an easier thoroughfare to Oregon and California. On the 29th of May, * Lester, in the "Gallery of Illustrious Americans." with a company of thirty-nine men, many of whom had accompanied him in 1842, he set out from the former point of departure. A detour through the mountains brought them upon the waters of the Bear river, which they followed to its debouchement into the Great Salt Lake. In a frail boat of inflated India-rubber cloth, a partial survey was effected of this remarkable phenomenon of nature, concerning which the only knowledge before obtained had been from the wild reports of the Indians and hunters who had occasionally visited it. Little did the adventurous explorers dream of the change that a few years would bring about upon those remote and desolate shores. The party left their camp by the Lake on the 12th of September, and, proceeding northward, reached the plains of the Columbia on the 18th, "in sight of the famous 'Three Buttes,' a well-known land-mark in the country, distant about fortyfive miles," In the month of November, having reached Fort Vancouver, and fully accomplished the duties assigned him, Colonel Fremont set out on his return by a new and dangerous route. Nothing but a perusal of the journal of the expedition can convey an adequate idea of the dangers and difficulties attendant upon the remainder of this enterprise, in which the complete circuit was made of that immense and unexplored basin lying between the Sierra Nevada and the Wahsatch or Bear River range of the Rocky Mountains; a region thus laid down in Fremont's chart: "The Great Basin: diameter 11° of latitude: elevation above the sea, between 4 and 5000 feet: surrounded by lofty mountains: contents almost unknown, but believed to be filled with rivers and lakes which have no communication with the sea, deserts and oases which have never been explored, and savage tribes which no traveller has seen or described." The following synopsis of the narrative of Fremont's return from the Pacific to the States is from the pen of the popular author before cited: "It was the beginning of winter. Without resources, adequate supplies, or even a guide, and with |