The Great Basin
Defined in the Frémont-Preuss Maps of the West In this fascinating book of early maps and
mapping of the Great Basin, author Richard
V. Francaviglia suggests and discusses three
possible explanations for a nonexistent transverse
Great Basin range depicted on the watershed 1848
Frémont-Preuss Map
of Oregon and Upper California: What follows is my own further look at the
possible origin of the depicted transverse
range.
A and B: are both necessary questions, but I
doubt that that depicted range represents the
latitudinally misplaced 18-mile long El Paso
Mountains--there is just too much displacement. And
I also doubt that the idea of a range is borrowed
from previously published maps. C: What remains: Frémont had traveled across the extreme
eastern end of that suggested range (blue) on his
2nd Expedition in 1844. The Talbot/Kern/Walker
detachment (red) crossed the western end on
Frémont's 3rd Expedition 1845. The 1848 map informs us that "These
mountains [also titled "Range" on the
map] are not explored, being only seen from
elevated points on the northern exploring
line." On that exploratory 1845 route through the
center of the basin, Frémont mapped the
observed the interior basins and ranges as all
north/south tending. This filled in much of the
immense white space of the 1845
map. In the narrative he correctly points
out that the mountains of the interior "conform
to the law which governs the course of the Rocky
mountains and Sierra Nevada, ranging nearly north
and south with very uniform characteristic
abruptness." Will Frémont have anything further to
say about that conjectured range? Yes, but not
for some years. Frémont was himself the 3rd expedition
topographer on that "northern route" (central route
across the Great Basin). He was a very capable
topographer from his months of field and table work
on the Nicollet survey maps of the upper
Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. "Formerly I had been entirely
devoted to my intended profession of
engineering. "Our work was done in the Coast
Survey building on the
[Capitol] hill...We were not
yet at work on the map. There was a
mass of astronomical and other
observations to be calculated and
discussed before a beginning on this
could be made. Indeed, the making of
such a map is an interesting process.
It must be exact. First the foundations
must be made in observations made in
the field; then the
[mathematical] reduction of
these observations to latitude and
longitude; afterward the projection of
the map, and the laying down upon it of
positions fixed by the observations;
then the tracing from the sketchbooks
of the lines of the rivers, the forms
of the lakes, the contour of the hills.
Specially it is interesting to those
who have laid in the field these
various foundations, to see them all
brought into final shape--fixing on a
small sheet the results of laborious
travel over waste regions, and giving
them an enduring place on the world's
surface." Memoir of My Life Edward Kern had been hired as the third
expedition artist, to record views, but was
personally instructed by Frémont in the
recording of topography. Kern traveled and mapped
the Humboldt River route with the Talbot-Walker
detachment, which then turned south from Walker
Lake along the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada to
Walker Pass, and so made very important
contributions along that route, including the Owens
River and Lake, Walker Pass, the Kern River, and
the southern San Joaquin Valley. The western boundary is the actual Sierra Nevada
and Cascade Ranges (red highlight). The eastern
boundary is not the "Wahsatch Mountains" (red
highlight), but rather a lightly hatchured
indicated (suggested?) range to the east (blue
highlight). So, regarding that indicated southern range,
again, Frémont's caveat: "These
mountains are not explored, being only seen from
elevated points on the northern exploring
line." Noted western map authority Carl Wheat
also noted that depicted "range," and
suggested that Frémont and Preuss
were "jumping to conclusions." If an actual range was intended,
it more like a blunder! But if their intention was to indicate
less than that, it is
unfortunate, because the
mapped image of that "range" drastically
reduces the size of the defined "Great
Basin", which had been more nearly correct
by today's definition as delineated in the
great white space of terra
incognita on the 1845 2nd Expedition
Frémont-Preuss map. And, what is equally unfortunate, the
depicted range soon appeared on other
maps. On one, a map of The Western
Territories of the United States
published by McNally in 1870, that
nonexistent transverse range is titled
"FREMONT MTS." The final episode of
the transverse range, as
it relates to Frémont himself, is
an 1886 Map When we recall the 1848 map's
admonition of the conjecture that
"These mountains are not
explored, being only seen from
elevated points on the northern
exploring line," this is
certainly updated information
based on Frémont's own
exploration of those
mountains. Great Basin, "diameter 11º
of latitude, 10º of
longitude.." "a basin of some five hundred
miles diameter every way..." "The Great Basin westward of the
Great Salt Lake has a diameter of
upward or three hundred and forty
geographical miles, and a mean
elevation of nearly five thousand eight
hundred feet, differing very
considerably from the rampart-like
mountain chains by which it is
surmounted. Our knowledge of this
configuration is one of the chief
points of Frémont's great
hypsometrical
investigation in the years 1842 and
1844." Alexander von Humboldt,
Kosmos, 1847. The 1848 map title states
that the map draws on"other
authorities." The other "best authorities," in addition to
expedition topographer Edward Kern who was with the
Talbot/Walker division, probably included Peter
Skene Ogden (through Dr. McLaughlan, HBC), Jedediah
Strong Smith, Tom
Fitzpatrick, Joseph
R. Walker, and Christopher
"Kit" Carson. There can be no doubt that
information came from the reports of naval Lt.
Wilkes (some western Oregon territory detail) and
the Army Topographical Corps' Lt. William Emory
(some Southwest detail). Frémont does not
name Wilkes or Emory,both men then openly hostile
political enemies in that post Mexican War period
of Frémont's life when he felt himself drawn
into "the poisoned atmosphere and jarring
circumstances of conflict among men, made subtle
and malignant by clashing interests."
He also notes that he had collected a specimen
of "rock
salt" from the place indicated on the map of
von Humboldt "where [Humboldt] indicates
Montagnes de Sel Gemme." During the very wealthy
period of his life when he was living on his Pocaho
estate on the Potomac, he acquired much of the
personal library of the late Baron von Humboldt at
auction. 1843--The route of the 1st expedition
from St. Louis to South Pass and into the Wind
River Chain. Much more detailed (scale 1:1000000)
than it is shown on the 1845 map (scale
(1:3000000). 1845: Map of an Exploring expedition
to the Rocky Mountains in the year 1842 and to
Oregon and North California in 1843-44 by Captain
J. C. Frémont. Drawn by Charles
Preuss 1845--From the 1845 Report: First survey
map of the Great Salt Lake at scale of
1;1000000; Beer Springs at a scale of 1 mile
to the inch; Bear River Valley scale 4.5
miles to the inch 1845--The route from the edge of the
Great Basin across the snow-covered 10'000' Sierra
Nevada to Sacramento at a scale of 3 miles to the
inch. (shown above right) 1848: Map of Oregon and Upper
California from the Surveys of John Charles
Frémont. 1848--The Preuss map of the Oregon
Trail in 7 sheets at a scale of 10 miles to the
inch--a road map and travel guide.. 1886--Map Showing Country Explored by
John Charles Frémont From 1841 through 1854
Inclusive, Drawn and Engraved Expressly for
Frémont's Memoirs" by A Zeese &
Company in Chicago. 24 x 24". The third expedition
route through the Great Basin is shown, but the
transverse range of the 1848 map has vanished,
being replaced by an east-west ranging string of
detached mountains. Frémont and the Great Basin: *A "bed of Mountainous
Ranges"
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The
Great Basin--a term [first
coinage] which I apply to the
intermediate region between the Rocky
mountains and the Sierra Nevada,
containing many lakes, with their own
system of rivers and creeks, and which
have no connection with the ocean. Between
these mountains are the arid plains which
receive and deserve the name of desert.
Such is the general structure of the
interior of the Great Basin, more Asiatic
than 
American
in its character, and much resembling, the
elevated region between the Caspian sea
and northern Persia. The rim of this Basin
is massive ranges of mountains, of which
the Sierra Nevada on the west, and the
Wahsatch and Timpanogos chains on the
east, are the most conspicuous. On the
north, it is separated from the waters of
the Columbia by a branch of the Rocky
mountains, and from the gulf of
California, on the south, by a bed of
mountainous ranges, of which the existence
has been only recently determined. John
Charles Frémont
That
"northern exploring line" (yellow) was
Frémont's 1845, 3rd Expedition exploratory
route made with ten men from Salt Lake to Pilot
Peak, and through the Humboldt Mountains, to Walker
Lake. In part, the same route that Lansford W.
Hastings later backtracked and appropriated as his
own "Hastings' Cut-off." Frémont was aware
of the travels of Jedediah Smith, who had crossed
the Sierra Nevada and central Great Basin from west
to east in 1827, which may have suggested the route
to him.
Considering
that Frémont got that correctly, the
appearance of a southern bounding transverse range
might stem from a long distance and compacted view
of separated mountains--perhaps further
foreshortened in the telescope.
But
strict engineering had lost its
inspiration in the charm of the new
field into 
which
I had entered during the last few
years"
The
other possibility that Francaviglia suggests is
that the indicated southern transverse "Dividing
range between the Pacific and the waters of the
Great Basin" is not actually intended to be a
continuous unbroken range, but rather mountains
ranged along a supposed hydrological boundary. This
must be considered, because the similarly
delineated east-west tending northern hydrological
limit carries the self same conformation and map
title, shown here with yellow highlight.
In
the Geographical Memoir,
Frémont's says the Great Basin is
"separated from the gulf of California,
on the south, by a bed (my
italics) of mountainous ranges
(ranges, not range), of which the
existence has been only recently
determined."
Showing
Country Explored by John Charles
Frémont From 1841 through 1854
Inclusive, Drawn and Engraved Expressly
for Frémont's Memoirs by A
Zeese & Company in Chicago. The third
expedition route through the Great Basin
is shown, but the transverse range of the
1848 map has been replaced by an east-west
ranging string of detached mountains.
Map
of an Exploring expedition to the Rocky
Mountains in the year 1842 and to
Oregon and North California in 1843-44
by Captain J. C. Frémont.
Map
of Oregon and Upper California from the
Surveys of John Charles
Frémont.
The
Geographical Memoir Upon Upper California
(in illustration of the map) is a much
under-appreciated work. And only hints at what we
could have had 
had
the appropriation for the 3rd expedition Report and
a 4th Expedition approved by the Senate not been
scuttled by the House. When it was written, Jessie
was fully occupied with her own and her mother's
health, so she has had little or nothing to do with
it. Something Frémont's detractors seem
forever unwilling to accept is Donald Jackson's
relation that in viewing the manuscript draft for
the 1st expedition report (National Archives
DNA-77), he found that the report was "much less a
joint effort than Frémont's comments would
indicate. The first nineteen sheets are in Jessie's
hand, and the remainder in Fremont's, with some
corrections and refinements in Jessie's."
There
is a post script to the Memoir in which
Frémont indicates his complete familiarity
with the Domingues/Escalante expedition (and no
doubt the Miera y Pacheco map). Frémont
records Erodium cicutarium (fillaree;
stork's bill; wild geranium) in bloom in the Great
Basin. This was a Spanish introduced plant. It must
have got into the Great Basin from the early
entradas of Spanish explorers?
Frémont also records the Maidus of the
Sierra foothills preparing and eating it,
apparently having spread from the mission lands
into the 
Frémont's
expedition: the Reports.
1850--A
newer printing of the 1848 map was published with
California and New Mexico, a Message from the
President of the United States, Transmitting
Information in Answer to a Resolution of the House
of the 31st of December, 1849, on the Subject of
California and New Mexico.
[Washington]: House Ex. Doc. No. 17, 1850.
This map is reduced in longitude, the eastern
portion being cut off to show the Great Salt Lake
as the most eastern point. Note the words "Upper
California" chopped off to "Cal" at the eastern
margin.
Frémont,
John Charles, Geographical Memoir Upon Upper
California, Senate. 30th Congress, Misc.
No.148, Wendell and Van Benthuysen, Washington,
1848. Contains the 1848 Frémont/Preuss
map.
