New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-10-09
luERICIN EYPLORdTI ONS.

A wear ago there were few educated Ameri-
cans who would not have stared with surprise
had apy one told them that there were regions
within the boundaries of the United States OF
which civilized man knew as little as he did OF
the steppes of Asia. Yet the adventures or
Powell on the Colorado, and OF Morgan IN the
great interior basin of Utah and Nevada, show
that the geography of our Western territories
is yet only half learned, and that men who
burn with the thirst of discovery have no need
to cool their ardor in Arctic SHOWS or journey
to the inhOsptable wildernesses of Central
Africa 1t is only little more than sixty years
since Merwether Lewis and William Clark
made their adventurous expedition from
the Mississippi to the mouth OF the
Columbia, and spent in the examination
of tho savage territories now comprising
Missouri, Kansas, Dacotah. Montana, and Ore
gon, nearly two years and half full OF in
tense privation and peril. Many now living
CAP remember the joy with which their return
was hailed after they had long been given up
for dead, and the eagerness OF the public to
read their narrative. We have scattered our
settlements far and wide over the country
which they explored with so much difficulty,
and are apt to fancy, because it has been
crossed and recrOssed so often, that we know
nearly all it contains. The last great geo
graphical secret of the United States was dis
closed, it is true, when Col. Powell passed
through the CafOns of the Colorado; but there
are many remote regions of wide extent which
have never been trodden by any white man
except some stray miner or trapper, and in
which the scientific explorer will still find
tempting field of research
The Morgan party, of whose adventures we
begin narrative this morning, started from
the Reese River mining region OF Nevada, and
surveyed, in ten months journey, an almost
unknown country lying to the south and south
west of the Great Salt Lake There, among
the ruins of q long forgotten civilization, they
found wonderful deposit of salt, covering
basin ten by three miles in extent to an average
depth of four feet Silver, mineral springs
and in some places a luxuriant vegetation, not
to speak of abundance of game, are among the
other items of their report, and 1t can hardly
be doubted that the country through which
they passed will before long support thousands
of mining and agricultural settlers.
In another letter. also published this morn
ing, California correspondent describes a
region of the Pacific coast which, though 1t
has been explored, is virtually unknown to the
civilized world Between the range of noun
tains which run through the peninsula of Cali
fornia and the shores of the ocean, there lies
an almost untraveled district which, at least
for q part OF. its extent, is perfect garden.
In many other parts of the West there are
similar unknown lands Astounding in natural
wonders and every variety of scenery. Why
should not some of our enterprisng men OF
leisure, instead of travelling the beaten routes
of Europe which they know by heart, spend
few months and few hundred dollars in ex-
poring with well-equipped parties some of
these American wildernesses