The mirror., 1923-12-13
OUR WESTERN EXPLORERS
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the Columbia River. Yet not till about
1928 was it known that it was possible
to follow up the North Platte River into
the mountains, then by the South Pass to
reach the upper waters of Green River,
which flows into the Colorado, thence to.
edge northwest to the valley of the uppef
Snake, the Lewis Fork of the Columbia.
The first man to realize that by turning
southwest from the Green River the ex-
plorer could reach the valley of the Weber
and follow it down to an inland water
that was soon called Great Salt Lake was
Ashley, Virgianian, in 1924. His part
ner was Jedediah Smith, New Yorker,
who was the first to penetrate the mys-
teries of the inland basin. He started south
from Salt Lake across rocky, sandy
desert and then by the old Spanish route
reached California. In 1927 he had the
courage to start straight eastward into the
lofty Sierra Nevada Mountains, which he
crossed in eight days; thence he made his
way back to Salt Lake. In all the annals
of the West no one has shown more pluck
and foresight and skill in leading men
and in discovering the secrets of nature
than Jedediah Smith, who in the end was
treacherously killed by an Indian.
By 1880 the geography of the West was
nearly cleared up except for the region
south of the Columbia River, where the
river Buenventura still appeared on the
map. That last remaining wide unex-
plored area was the scene of the famous
second expedition of Captain Fremont. He
had already earned a reputation by an
expedition the previous year in which he
was one of the first to penetrate the mag
nifcent valley that lay just to the east of
the continental divide in the neighborhood
of Longs Peak, Colorado. In 1s43 he
started again with government party by
the regular route, which by that time was
called the Oregon Trail; they dragged
howitzer on wheels with them all the way
to the lower Columbia. Then he turned
south into tumble of mountains of which
Mount Shasta is the most striking. There
he Aoundered about in the SHOWS, felt his
way southwark east of the Sierra Nevadas
and then crossed west by winter trip to
the lower valley of the Sacramento. He
put the Buenventura forever off the map
by proving that there was no drainage
out of the Great Basin.
Still there were many uninhabited val
leys and untrodden peaks in the West,
and by some strange chance the most
startling natural scenery in the whole in
terror, the Yellowstone Valley with its
lake and canon and unrivaled hot springs
and geysers, was never visited by anyone
who knew how to describe it till small
party was sent out in 1869.
The explorers found two kinds of in
habitants wherever they went-the wild
animals and the native Indians. Rattle
snakes were sometimes numerous; Lieuten-
ant Pike reports that his party killed nine
large ones in single day. Fasteners
looked with astonishment on the prairie
dogs, or the "wishtonwish," on the ante
lope, the Rocky Mountain sheep and Rocky
Mountain goats and the beaver, which
had almost disappeared in the East. The
animal most in evidence was the buffalo.
Everywhere between the Rockies and the
Mississippi it ranged often in herds of
thousands 1t furnished food and clothing
and material for tents and boats to Indian
and explorer alike.
The bears caused no end of exciting ad-
ventures, especially the grizzlies, which
had never been described by white men
till Lewis and Clark made their expedi-
ton. Their men encountered such speci-
mems as the one described in the following
account: "Four of the hunters now fred,
and each lodged a ball in his body, two
of them directly through the lungs. The
furious animal sprang up and ran open