Chapter XIV

DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT BASIN, WITH THE SALT LAKE OF UTAH,
AND JOURNEY ACROSS THE SIERRA NEVADA TO CALIFORNIA.

DURING the first years of the present century, the tide alike of emigration and exploration had set toward the northern territories of the United States. The discovery of the sources of the Mississippi and of those of its chief affluents, however, left little more to be done in that direction, and, in 1838, a new chapter in the history of modern American geography was ushered in by the sending out of a naval exploring expedition, under Captain Wilkes, with orders to make surveys along the western coast, especially of the bay now known as that of San Francisco.

On the arrival of Wilkes at Yerba Buena, as what has since become the gate of the Pacific was then called, the town consisted merely of a large frame building occupied by an agent of the Hudson’s Bay Company, a store kept by an American, a billiard room and bar, a poop cabin of a ship used as a residence by a captain, a blacksmith’s shop, and a few sheds, all of which had sprung up at intervals since California, deserted, as related above, by its early colonists, had become the prey of trappers, miners, and other adventurers of various nationalities.

The most prominent man then in California was a Swiss named Sutter, who had bought of the Mexican Government a tract of land thirty leagues square, and was now employed in laying it out under the imposing name of New Helvetia. He had already built a fort near the junction of the Sacramento and American rivers to which he had given his own name, little dreaming that the discovery of gold close at hand would shortly make that name world-famous, as the most powerful emigration magnet of the day.

Equally unconscious of the approaching, almost miraculous change in the aspect of affairs on the south-western coast of North America, Wilkes completed his survey, and returned home to report the harbor of Yerba Buena to be one of the finest, if not the very best in the world; and, a little later, the Government sent out an expedition, under Lieutenant John C. Fremont, to explore the southern half of the Rocky Mountain Range, with a view to the discovery of a good route to California.

Illustration: JOHN C. FREMONT.

Fremont left the mouth of the Kansas, at the head of a party of about twenty, about the 2d of May, and followed its course across the state of the same name, till he reached the barren banks of the Platte, or Nebraska. Here he decided to follow the southern fork of that important tributary of the Mississippi, and a march of a few miles brought the party into the districts occupied by the Arapaho and Cheyenne Indians, the former of whom at first appeared disposed to dispute the passage of the white men.

One encounter, which threatened to be serious, took place on the 8th July. The excitement of watching a fight between some eighteen or twenty buffaloes, which the explorers had at the last moment decided in favor of the weaker party by a few well-directed shots, had but just subsided, when some dark objects appeared on the horizon among the hills. More buffaloes, of course, thought every one; but, presently, Maxwell, a trader who knew the neighborhood and its people well, happened to look behind him, and saw crowds of mounted natives furiously urging on their horses.

At first there seemed to be no more than twenty warriors, but behind them came others, and soon the hills and plains were darkened by the dusky figures. The explorers halted, drew together, and determined to sell their lives as dearly as they could, prepared to meet the onslaught with a volley of bullets. Another moment, and many of the Indians would have been rolling in the dust, when Maxwell suddenly recognized their leader as a man with whom he had often traded. “Don’t you know me?” he shouted in the Arapaho language; and, astonished at the sound of his own tongue, the chief wheeled his horse round. Then, dashing forward, he extended his hand to Fremont with the one word “Arapaho,” meaning that, as a member of that nation, he was the friend of Maxwell’s friend.

Escorted by the now courteous savages, the expedition pressed on, and, without further adventures of consequence, followed the south fork of the Platte to St. Vram’s Fort, a trading outpost, situated just under the most easterly buttresses of the Rocky Mountain Range, about seventeen miles from Long’s Peak. Pike’s Peak could also be seen about one hundred miles to the south, and but little of actual exploration remained to be done in the immediate neighborhood. Fremont resolved, therefore, to alter his course, and follow the north fork of the Platte to Fort Laramie, a second remote outpost in the wilderness, whence he hoped to make his way to the head of the Sweet Water River, an affluent of the Nebraska issuing from the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains.

Crossing the fertile, garden-like valley of the Platte, with the low line of the frowning Black Hills on the left, the expedition reached Fort Laramie in safety on the 13th July, and were there detained a few days on account of difficulties between the white settlers and the Gros-Ventre, Cheyenne, Sioux, and other tribes, who were scouring the country between the Platte and the Rocky Mountains, rendering it unsafe for travelers.

Imagining the dangers to have been overrated, however, Fremont and his colleagues resolved not to allow them to prevent the completion of their task. On the 18th, therefore, when the men had had time to recover from the fatigues of their long march, they were called together, and Fremont told them of his intention to proceed, adding that he was willing to release any one of them from his engagement who was desirous to retire from the service. Only one man availed himself of this privilege, and when he had been dismissed, amidst the ridicule of his comrades, active preparations were made for the continuation of the journey.

The tents were struck, the horses saddled, and the “stirrup-cup” was being enjoyed, when four chiefs made their way into the midst of the white men, and one of them having handed a letter to Fremont, they seated themselves in silence to watch him read it. The letter, which was in French, ran as follows:――

“Fort Platte, July 1st, 1842.

“Mr. Fremont,――The chiefs, having assembled in council, have
just told me to warn you not to set out before the party of
young men which is now out shall have returned. Furthermore,
they tell me that they are very sure to fire upon you as soon
as they meet you. They are expected back in seven or eight days.
Excuse me for making these observations, but it seems my duty
to warn you of danger. Moreover, the chiefs who prohibit your
setting out before the return of the warriors are the bearers
of this note.

“I am your obedient servant,

“JOSEPH BISSOUETTE.”

This Joseph Bissouette was the interpreter engaged for the passage of the country between Fort Laramie and the Rocky Mountains, and the warning was therefore not to be neglected. The chiefs, whose names were given as Otter Hat, Breaker of Arrows, Black Night, and Bull’s Tail, maintained silence while Fremont read and explained the letter to his men. Then one of them advanced, and, having shaken hands――a ceremony all Indians who have had any thing to do with white men are careful not to neglect――he made a speech to the effect that he and his people were glad to see their white brothers ... they looked upon their coming as the light which goes before the sun, for they would tell their great father (so they called the President of the United States) that they had seen them, and that they were naked and poor. But these dear white brothers had come at a bad time. Some of the Indians had been killed by emigrants from the great father’s lands far away in the East, and the young warriors in the mountains would avenge the blood of their relations, etc., etc.

To this harangue, which from the point of view of the poor dispossessed owners of the soil was really very moderate, Fremont, after a few general remarks, made answer――“We have thrown away our bodies, and will not turn back. When you told us that your young men would kill us, you did not know that our hearts were strong, and you did not see the rifles which my young men carry in their hands. We are few, and you are many, and may kill us all; but there will be much crying in your villages, for many of your young men will stay behind, and forget to return with your warriors from the mountains. Do you think that our great chief will let his soldiers die, and forget to cover their graves? Before the snows melt again, his warriors will sweep away your villages, as the fire does the prairie in the autumn. See! I have pulled down my white houses, and my people are ready; when the sun is ten paces higher, we shall be on the march. If you have any thing to tell us, you will say it soon.”

The chiefs withdrew in sullen silence, the preparations for the march were resumed, and the expedition was again just starting, when Bull’s Tail came back with a message that a young man should be sent as guide to the first stopping place. This apparently slight concession meant every thing. The presence of one warrior would, as all knew, protect the whole of the whites from the savages out on the hills; and, naming the place for the pitching of the camp that evening, Fremont cordially thanked the emissary, who returned at once to his comrades.

Following the north fork of the Platte, the explorers soon entered a desolate country, laid waste by the combined evils of drought and war. The interpreter urged Fremont to turn back, assuring him that death from starvation was all but inevitable. Again calling his men together, the leader once more gave them their choice of pushing on or returning, and all but six decided for the latter course. These six cried with one voice, “We’ll eat the mules if buffalo are not to be had;” and, shaking hands with their comrades, the brave little remnant pressed on.

On the 31st July the Platte was left behind, and a short march brought the expedition to the banks of its affluent, the Sweet Water River, which flows in a gentle descent from the most picturesque gorge of the Rocky Mountains, now called the South Pass, but then practically unknown to the white man. Now climbing some rugged height, now pausing to rest on the banks of the river, the gigantic ridge called the Devil’s Gate was left behind, and on the 7th August the South Pass itself was entered.

Instead of the arduous climb associated as a matter of course with the scaling of the Rocky Mountains, Fremont now found himself ascending a sandy plain, which brought him, imperceptibly as it were, to the primal home of many a river flowing into the Pacific. The watershed ――as unique in its character as the swamps which nurse the infancy of the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence――left behind, Fremont led his little band up a long and beautiful ravine, discovering, a few miles further on, a lake “set like a gem in the mountains.”

The newly-found sheet of water, which was ascertained to be the source of one branch of the Colorado of the West, was named Mountain Lake; and the instructions of the Government having now been fully carried out, it was resolved to return eastward. Before sounding the retreat, however, Fremont noticed a lofty mountain peak in the vicinity of the South Pass, and resolved to ascend it. This turned out to be a matter of considerable difficulty. First the mules were left behind, then boots and stockings were discarded, the use of the toes being absolutely necessary to the advance of the climbers.

Fremont himself was the first to reach the summit. Availing himself of a kind of comb of the mountain, he gained a point with an overhanging buttress, round which he crept, putting hands and feet in the crevices between the blocks, and often hanging over a vertical precipice several hundred feet deep, where a moment’s giddiness would have been fatal. At last he stood, to quote his own words, “on a narrow crest about three feet in width, with an inclination of about 20° N., 51° E.;” and though he did not know it then, he had reached the highest point of the great Rocky Mountain Range, 13,590 feet above the sea-level――a point still known, in honor of its discoverer, as Fremont’s Peak.

As he paused to rest, and gazed down upon the lovely view at his feet, stretching away to the shores of the Pacific, Fremont relates that a solitary bee came flying up from the eastern valley, and settled on the knee of one of the men, “A moment’s thought,” he adds, “would have made us let this solitary pioneer of the advance of civilization continue his way unharmed; but we carried out the law of this country, where all animated nature seems at war.” The bee was caught, killed, and placed among the flowers collected on the way up; and in this slight incident we read a melancholy prophecy of the fate awaiting the human inhabitants of the lands now for the first time brought within the limits of that civilization which has never yet proved itself wide enough to contain the red man and the white.

From the summit of Fremont’s Peak the explorers could see on the one side the innumerable lakes and streams among which sprang the Colorado of the Gulf of California, while on the other lay the romantic Wind River Valley, whence flows the Yellowstone branch of the Missouri; while far away on the north rose the snow-crowned heads of the Trois Tetons, the first homes of the Missouri and Columbia, with the less lofty peaks at the southern extremity of the range which witnessed the birth of the Nebraska. Of the whole scene, the most remarkable characteristic was, and is, the traces of terrible convulsions of nature. The chain is split from end to end into ridges and chasms, alternated with thin walls of rock, broken at their terminations into natural minarets and columns, producing an effect of weird, unearthly beauty peculiarly striking.

Noting, however, but the main features of a district now associated with so many scenes of adventure in the great rush of emigration westward so soon to follow, Fremont hastened back to his camp in the South Pass, and thence returned to Fort Laramie, which he reached in safety without the loss of a single man, all the prophecies as to the dangers awaiting him being unfulfilled. A few weeks later, his report was in the hands of his Government, who marked their sense of their services by at once appointing him to the command of a second expedition; this time with orders to connect the work he had already done with that of Wilkes, by examining the country between the southern half of the Rocky Mountains and the shores of the Pacific. With this end in view, Fremont, accompanied by some thirty-nine men――Canadians, Creoles, and Americans――started from Kansas, near the junction of that river with the Missouri, early in June, 1843.

Following the now well-beaten emigrant tracks for the West, the expedition reached the Rocky Mountains considerably to the south of the pass discovered on the previous trip, and near the connecting ridge between the Utah or Bear River Mountains and the Wind River chain. This ridge separated the waters flowing to the Gulf of California on the east, and those on the west which run more directly to the Pacific, from that vast inland basin of lakes with no outlet to the ocean.

Crossing the Rocky Mountains, the party entered the fertile and picturesque valley of the Bear or Utah River, the chief tributary of the Great Salt Lake, first alluded to by Baron La Hontan in 1689, but never before visited by any white man except wandering trappers, whose eyes had been blind to the wonderful nature of the phenomenon now to be examined.

Slowly descending the lovely valley, tenanted only by a few Shoshone Indians, Fremont reached the now famous Beer Springs, situated in a mountain-locked basin of mineral waters, on the 25th August. These springs burst from openings in the rocks, and give off an effervescing gas, which produces an effect of great beauty, the water rising in trembling column to a considerable height, accompanied by a subterranean noise, accounted for by the natives in many a weird legend.

Beyond the Beer Springs the cavalcade pressed on to the wild western region between them and Salt Lake inhabited by the scattered Root Indians, who live almost entirely on roots and seeds, and on the 1st September reached the junction of the Bear and Roseaux Rivers, where an india-rubber boat provided for river navigation was inflated and launched on the waters of the united streams. A little further on, however, the river, which Fremont had hoped would carry him down to the lake, itself suddenly divided into a number of shallow branches, and the land journey had to be resumed.

Through low flats, across salt marshes, or the salt incrusted beds of dried-up lakes, the weary travelers plodded. On the 6th September their perseverance was at last rewarded by reaching the summit of a kind of ridge, from which they beheld, immediately at their feet, the waters of the long-sought inland sea, stretching in silent grandeur far beyond their range of vision, and receiving in its cold and lifeless bosom all the rivers of the vast basin of Utah, except the head branches of the Colorado and Humboldt.

From the center of the lake rose several islands, some of them 3,250 feet above its level, but no sign of animal or vegetable life could be detected on any of them. Equally lonely and deserted were the wild, weird heights and dreary stretches of briny wastes shutting in the shores of the “still innocent Dead Sea” itself, and it was with a feeling almost akin to shrinking that Fremont made preparations for launching his boat upon its waters.

After a somewhat perilous voyage, during which the clothes of the explorers became incrusted with salt, the boat was brought within wading distance of one of the smaller islands, and, landing, Fremont carefully examined its strange cliffs and masses, finding them also covered with the apparently omnipresent salt. A few temporary tents were then constructed of the driftwood scattered on the shores, and after kindling large fires to excite the wonder of any straggling savage on the lake shore, the successful explorers――the first of their race to spend a night near the site of the now world-famous Salt Lake City――lay down to sleep.

In the morning, to the surprise of all, the noise of huge waves breaking on the rocks was the first sound to greet their ears, and no time was lost in making their way back to the mainland. The “still and lifeless bosom” of the lake had changed its character, and, though powerless to give or nourish vitality, proved its capacity to destroy. The fragile india-rubber bark was more than once nearly swallowed up in its treacherous waters, but late in the day all landed from it in safety, and on the 12th September the journey was resumed.

Following much the same route as that taken on the way to the lake, our hero now led his men back to the Bear River, and thence through the great basin bearing his name, and inclosing the vast system of rivers and creeks belonging to the newly discovered Dead Sea, to a ravine commanding a pass in the dividing ridge between the waters of the Bear River and the Snake or Lewis fork of the Columbia; thus, so to speak, throwing a bridge of connection across from his own work to that of his predecessors.

On the 19th September the expedition arrived in safety at Fort Hall, a trading post situated in a low and fertile valley, some twenty miles long, formed by the confluence of the Portneuf and Snake Rivers. The winter was now rapidly approaching, yet Fremont resolved to push on first to the Columbia River, and from thence home by a new route, making what he characterizes as a “great circuit to the south and south-east,” with a view to the exploration of the Great Basin between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. No persuasions could induce him to alter this determination, although the task he had set himself was pronounced absolutely impracticable. He arrived in safety at Fort Vancouver, about ninety miles from the mouth of the Columbia, on the 16th November, and almost immediately commenced the return journey; but he had not proceeded far, when he found himself in a pathless wilderness haunted by bands of wandering Indians, from whom scarcely any guidance and no food could be obtained.

On the 10th December, a lake, to which the name of Tlamath was given, was discovered; and on the 14th a stream was struck, which Fremont, from astronomical observations taken, concluded to be the principal branch of the Sacramento. He now hoped to find an opening in the mountains through which he could reach the districts explored in the early part of his trip; but in this he was unsuccessful. Three weeks of exhausting wandering brought the weary travelers to another remarkable mountain lake, to which, on account of a tapering rock rising from its center, the name of Pyramid was given.

Illustration: TEMPLE BLOCK, SALT LAKE CITY.

While the indefatigable hero was ascertaining the exact position of the newly-found sheet of water, a few half-naked Indians, speaking a dialect of the Snake language, made their appearance, and said they lived in the rocks hard by, and that there was a river at the end of the lake. Cheered by being again in a country where human beings could live, Fremont led his party round the lake to the so-called river, and found it to be merely a fresh-water stream flowing into, not out of, the Pyramid. This at once convinced him that he had discovered, not the head-waters of any river, but a vast interior lake without outlet.

The last of the cattle brought for provisions for the party had been killed a day or two previously, and it was now a question of the utmost moment whether an attempt should be made to pierce the mountains on the east or go down through those on the west to the sea, when a number of Indians came out of a neighboring thicket who said their water was full of fish. The camp was at once pitched, and a little later the hungry explorers were enjoying a hearty meal of salmon trout. The natives, however, could give but little information about their country. They made a drawing of their river on the ground, representing it as issuing from another lake in the mountains three or four days distant, beyond which was a single mountain, and further away still were two rivers, on one of which white people like their guests traveled.

Whether these white people were settlers on the Sacramento, or travelers from the United States, there was no evidence to show; and after a long and eager discussion with his followers, Fremont resolved finally to abandon all idea of returning to the United States for the present, and to cross the Sierra Nevada into the valley of the Sacramento. This decision was greeted with eager acclamation by all concerned; and although the Indians assured him that the mountains were altogether impassable in the winter, not a moment was lost in preparing for the arduous undertaking.

The first peak of the most easterly range of the mighty rocky barrier was scaled on the 20th January; but a violent snowstorm coming on compelled the travelers to turn southward, and encamp on the eastern side of the mountains. A little further on a large stream was discovered, which was followed to its outlet from the mountains, where the ascent of the ridge was again commenced. A wild and narrow pass, through which ran an Indian trail, with mountains on either side cased in snow and ice, led up to a lofty height, looking down from which, several natives were seen skimming and circling about on snow-shoes.

The shouts of the whites, who were eager to obtain guides, only frightened the natives, who scudded rapidly away; but the next day a number of Indians were surprised in a little valley, and the travelers succeeded in reassuring them by signs of friendship. With great difficulty――the language spoken by these children of the desert being quite unintelligible――Fremont made out that the waters along which he had been traveling belonged to the system of the Great Basin, on the edge of which he had been since early in December, and that the great ridge on the left must still be crossed before the Pacific Ocean could be reached.

Explaining to the Indians that he was endeavoring to find a passage through the mountains into the country of the whites, which he was going to see, Fremont begged them to find him a guide, to whom presents of scarlet cloth and other articles should be given. The redskins looked at the rewards offered, consulted together, and then, first pointing to the snow on the mountains, drew their hands across their necks to show how deep it was. It was impossible, they implied by their gestures, to go through this barrier of solid water; the white men must turn southward to begin with, and not westward, until after a long tramp in that direction.

Illustration: SAN FRANCISCO IN 1849.

To this compromise Fremont was obliged to consent, and, escorted by a young Indian guide, he led his weary followers ten miles in a south-easterly direction, reaching, on the 31st January, a gap in the Sierra Nevada, through which he hoped to penetrate to the fertile plains beyond. Again he was disappointed; the pass scaled, he still had before him a great continuous range, which he felt satisfied was the central ridge of the Sierra Nevada, the great Californian Mountain. He now knew, however, that the Bay of San Francisco, or Yerba Buena, as it was still called, lay on the other side of this great mass, and resolved, at whatever cost, to traverse it without delay.

The camp was pitched in the eastern side, and the fires had scarcely been lighted, when crowds of almost naked Indians rushed in, bringing with them long nets and bows greatly resembling those in use on the Sacramento River, which, as Fremont knew, drains the great central valley of California. Here was an incidental proof of the approaching end of the long and terrible journey, for in nothing are local influences in America more distinctly reflected than in the arms and utensils of the natives.

Very eager were the questions put to the new-comers, who were, so to speak, links between the east and the west of the mighty barrier to be crossed, and having heard all that they could tell, Fremont informed his men of the resolution he had already long before come to himself, of crossing the Californian Mountain. Again a young man was induced by a large present to act as guide, and on the 1st February the great enterprise was begun.

Silently――for they knew how hazardous was the task before them――the explorers commenced the ascent of the mountain, along the valley of a tributary stream of the Salmon-trout River. Deeper and deeper became the snow, and it was soon necessary to break a road. Ten men were told off for this service, mounted on the strongest surviving horses, each man in succession opening a path until he and his steed became exhausted, when he drew aside and let his comrade pass him. Sixteen miles were thus traversed; a height of 6,750 feet above the sea-level was attained, and still the icy peaks reared their heads with no sensible diminution in their lofty inaccessibility.

On the 4th February, two Indians joined the party, and one of them, an old man, made a harangue, much of which was understood by Fremont, who had now learned something of the language of the mountaineers. “Rock upon rock, rock upon rock, snow upon snow, snow upon snow lies before you,” said the speaker, “and even if you get over the snow, you will not be able to get down from the mountains.” The guide, on whom no word was lost, was so overcome by the apparent hopelessness of the situation, that he covered his face with his blanket and wept bitterly. “I wanted to see the whites,” he moaned; “I came away from my own people to see the whites, and I wouldn’t care to die among them, but here....” Sobs checked his voice; “and,” as Fremont adds with the quaint humor which runs throughout much of his narrative, “seated round the tree, the fire illuminating the rocks and the tall boles of the pines round about, and the old Indian haranguing, we presented a group of very serious faces.”

The next morning, the guide, overcome by the horror awakened by the Indian’s prophecy of disaster, ran away, and Fremont, rallying his men about him, offered to go forward on snow-shoes, with one companion, a Mr. Fitzpatrick, and make a reconnaissance. The result won by this prompt measure imbued the whole party with fresh energy. From the summit of a peak ten miles from the camp, a view was obtained of a low range of mountains, which could be none other than those of the coast of California. Between the explorers, then, and this seaboard chain lay the valley of the Sacramento, and, when they eagerly scanned the intervening space with glasses, the course of a river could be made out, with dots of prairie land on either side.

Another six days of struggle with ice and snow, and the camp was pitched on the summit of the pass, 2,000 feet higher than that of the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, in the dividing ridge of the Sierra Nevada, and in N. lat. 38° 44′, W. long. 120° 28′. Thus, for the first time, was revealed to the white man of modern days the phenomenon of a range of mountains at the extremity of the continent higher than the great Rocky Mountains themselves. The existence of the Great Basin was accounted for, and it was evident that here too there must be a system of small, land-locked lakes and rivers which the Sierra Nevada forever prevents from escaping to the Pacific Ocean.

The mountain barrier was conquered at last, and, descending the western slopes, with hearts beating high with hope and triumph, the heroes soon struck the waters of a river which turned out to be the American fork of the Sacramento. Following it through a beautiful and fertile country, they came, on the 6th March, to Sutter’s Fort, outside which they were met by its owner and founder, who, as will readily be imagined, gave them an enthusiastic welcome.

Thus ended one of the most romantic and perilous journeys ever made in the United States. For the first time, the Sierra Nevada had been crossed by white men, and for the first time, the existence of an overland route between the East and the West had been proved.

The remainder of the trip to the sea, through the beautiful valley of the San Joaquin, though interesting, was tame in comparison with the transit of the mountains. After approaching the now well known Bay of San Francisco, Fremont made his way back by a more southerly and less difficult route than in his westward journey to the Great Basin, again visiting the Salt Lake of Utah, and making acquaintance with many a fine specimen of the southern branch of the great Shoshone family.

Toward the close of May, the Great Salt Lake was left behind, and a fort-night’s journey, through the comparatively familiar districts overlooked by the mountains dividing the Pacific from the Mississippi rivers, brought the party once more to the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, first scaled by Fremont three years before. A slight detour southward, to examine three peaks well known to the hunter and trapper, but hitherto unnamed, was succeeded by a journey across the Rocky Mountains, rendered somewhat exciting by a struggle going on between the Arapahoes and the Utahs, but on the 18th June the summit of the ridge, 11, 200 feet above the sea-level, overlooking the head-waters of the Arkansas, was reached in safety. The Arkansas was now followed to its junction with the Mississippi, on the broad waters of which the explorers embarked on the 18th July, arriving at St. Louis on the 6th August.

Illustration: CAMPED IN THE DESERT.

In 1848, the indefatigable Fremont made another journey to California, this time at his own expense; but in attempting to cross the mountains between the Rio Grande and the Colorado in the depth of winter, his guide lost his way, and nearly all the men and animals died a miserable death. Fremont himself escaped, but we have been unable to obtain any record of his adventures, or of the geographical discoveries made on this last trip, which, however, took place after the discovery of gold near Sutter’s Fort and the admission of California to the Union had completely revolutionized the aspect of affairs.