The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1872-09-20
WONDERS OF THE WEST.
Lieutenant Whecler's Exploring
Expedition.

The Great Basin of Utah and Nevada
Lieutenant Wheeler's Exploring
Expedition.
From the sOuces of the mighty Nile
and the wonders of Eastern Equatorial
Africa we propose in this article to
carry the minds of our readers to some
of the surprising natural wonders OF
our own great land. We published a
very interesting letter yesterday from
a Herald correspondent at Salt Lake
City giving the details of n Govern
meht exploration about to be under
taken In that interior great basin of
Utah and Nevada, under the COM
| mand of Lieutenant g. NJ. Wheeler,
of the United States Typographical
Engineers, in connection with a gen.
eral scientific survey I'm process for the
settlement of all geographical doubts
| over those vast regions extending from
the one hundredth degree of west
| longitude (Which is near the heart of
| the Great Plains) to the Pacific coast.
These surveys and explorations will
| be prosecuted under the act of Con-
gress "to establish an astronomical
base. and to continue the military and
geographical surveys and explorations
west of the one hundredth meridian"
We shall, however, cOnfine our re-
| marks for the present to the field-work
for this season proposed by Lieutenant
Wheeler, and upon which, fully equip
ped and provisioned, he Is about to
enter from his present rendezvous at
Salt Lake City.
His exploration will embrace areas
i'm Utah, Nevada, Arizona. He will
examine the southern and southeastern
parts of the Great Salt Lake Basin,
and settle the mooted question "a to
the identity of the drainage further
south Of the Preuss and Sewer Lakes
and he will Inspect the mineral ranges
from Salt Lake down to Virgin River,
and thence down TO its junction with
that wild river of the great Gallons
the Colorado. The silver bearing
ranges of Eastern Nevada will also be
examined, and the lofty, snow-clad
and extensive Wahsatch range, the
eastern boundary of the Great Basin.
The geological branch of the survey
will fix the limit of time which min
eral groupings may be reasonably ex-
pected, and beyond which it would not
be judicious to search for them. Much
of the labor Of the survey will be de-
voted to this object, and particularly
inasmuch as the soil of Utah and Ne
vada being mostly desert, those couu-
tries must depend for their settlement
and development mainly upon their
mineral resources. But still, in this
expedition, all the usual scieiitii,c de-
partments will be fully represented.
The scientific corps, the teamsters,
packers, attendants, &C., and pro-
tecting company of cavalry, all told,
will number one hundred persons.
That is the equipment which Living
stone by England should be provided.
Meanwhile, side parties from Wheeler's
corps are engaged in geological ex-
aminatiOns around Great salt Lake,
and Gen. Morrow, of Camp Douglas,
an accomplished officer, well qualified
for the task, proposes an excursion TO
Provost, fifty miles south, for the ex-
animation of a number OF ancient
mounds and other supposed Aztec re-
mains in that quarter.
Now, from what we know already
of the wonders of Utah and Nevada,
we have no doubt that the reports of
these forthcoming explorations will be
of the greatest interest tandimpOrtance.
During the Mexican war and tor many
wears after it the army officers, over
land emigrants, and other pioneers
passing through the Great Basin con-
Cured i'm the opinion that it was an
utterly God d-fOrsaken country, not
worth one cent for thousand acres,
beyond the few green patches along
the mountain streams, which could be
made productive by irrigation. Next
came those silver discoveries in Neva-
da, from which hundreds of millions
have been added to the general wealth
of our country, and yet perhaps not
over one-half the mountains of Nevada
have been explored or prospected.
Next came the Pacific Railroad, which
has made even the Nevada deserts
along the line valuable% property, and
which, from its branch road TO Salt
Lake City and the recently discovered
mines i'm the neighbOrhood, have ad-
vaneed real estate in that little city
to something apprOximating the scale
of New York prices.
From recent travellers in Utah, more
over, we learn that there is no con-
ception in the East of the mineral
riches of that Territory that its coal
mines already furnish heavy trade TO
the Pacific Railroad to the Pacific:
the "ROcky Mountain coal" fine
bituminOus article, is the general fuel
of San Francisco; that this coal IS
worth more to those timberless States
and Territories from Utah westward
than all their mines of gold and silver;
that the mountains west and south of
Great Salt Lake to Utah Lake and its
basin are lined with silver, lead, and
iron: that further south there are
mountains of rock salt and mountains
of pure sulphur, the upheavals of ex-
tinct volcanoes; that they are building
the Temple at Salt Lake City from
great uuarries of the finest granite in
the world; that the soda, sulphur and
boiling springs of Utah have never
been numbered, and that down to-
ward Arizona there are mountains.
cliffs, riffs and canOns more wonderful
than the Devils Slide or the Devils
Gate of the Weber River, or the pic
turesaue palisades of the Humboldt;
that there are still thousands of acres
of wild land in the valleys and bot
toms of the Salt Lake basin, which
can be made to produce from fifty to
sixty bushels of wheat to the acre by
irrigation; that limestone is the pre-
dominating rock in the Salt Lake
Mountains, and that simply by solar
eyaporatiOn the manufacture of salt
from the saturated solution of the Salt
Lake is profitable business.
Lieutenant Wheeler's forthcoming
thorough exploration will, no doubt,
throw a flood of light upon all these
resources of wealth and we expect,
too. that in the Colorado defiles and in
the canons of Southern Utah and
Northern Arizona it will give us many
interesting discoveries OF that ancient
Aztec race, the ruins belonging o
which in the valley of the Gila River,
and i'm the valleys of other tributaries
of the Colorado, give evidence of con-
siderable advances i'm the arts of civili-
cation. The traditions of the present
local tribes on the Gila tells us that the
Aztecs, many, many generations ago,
moved southwark, and that Cortez
found them i'm all their glory i'm their
splendid semi-barbaric and semi-civili-
zed City of Mexico. There are yet
thousands of square miles of the noun
tains and sage-brush deserts of Utah
and Nevada still unexplored, and we
anticipate, from the comprehensive
researches of Lieut.. Wheeler's expedi-
ton therein, revelations of many new
wonders, which will eclipse the Won
dor. of EouatoriaI Africa.-N. \.