Exploring the Great Basin (The American exploration and travel series) - Hardcover

Cline, Gloria Griffen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0806105526 ISBN 13: 9780806105529

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963

Synopsis

The Great Basin encompasses the western half of Utah, the southwestern corner of Wyoming, the southeastern corner of Idaho, a fairly large area in southeastern Oregon, parts of Southern California and almost all of Nevada. Unique geographically in the United States because its waters have no outlet to the sea. It was the last large area of North America below the Arctic latitudes to be explored, mostly because of its difficult terrain and inhospitable climate. Here the Spaniards sought an overland route to connect their Arizona and New Mexican settlements with California, and the British and American fur trappers searched for fur-bearing streams. And, paradoxically, it was in this land of interior drainage that all three searched for the San Buenaventura River, the mythical water passage from the rocky mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Dominguez and Escalante, Alexander Ross and Peter Skene Ogden, and Jim Bridger, J. R. Walker, the Sublettes, William Ashley and above all, Jedediah Smith were among the explorers of the region. This book is the first comprehensive account of the Great Basin from its discovery by white men in 1776 to the time its true physiographical nature was finally understood, when Freemont on his Second Exposition, gave it the name it bears today. Many old and rare maps of the area are reproduced, notable among them being the map of Ogden's Snake Country Exposition of 1829, never before published. The author also had access to unpublished diaries and letters in the Hudson's Bay Company archives, so for the first time British operations in the Basin are discussed in authoritative detail and Spanish and American activities brought into perspective.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Publication date: 1963
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0806105526
• ISBN 13: 9780806105529
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 254