Show 59 asts conceived tlie idea of a short-c- ut to the Pacific by way of the Kississippi-Missou- ri river route to this great salt lake which was reported to be connected with the Pacific by large navigable streams In 1772 according to Stansbury a publication carried this interesting account concerning the La Hontan discoveries and their possible results: will be of great convenience to this country if It ever it becomes settled that there is an easy communication therewith and the South Sea which lies between America and China and that two ways : by the north branch of the great Yellow River by the natives called the Massorites doubtless the Missouri which hath a course of five hundred miles navigable to its heads or springs and which proceeds from a ridge of hills somewhat north of New Mexico passable by horse foot or wagon In less than a half a day On the other side are rivers which run into a great lake that empties itself by another great navigable river into the South Sea The same may be said of the Meschaouay up vhich our people have been but not so far as the Baron La Hontan who passed on it above three hundred miles almost due west and declares it comes from the same ridge of hills above mentioned and that divers rivers from the other side soon make a large river which enters into a vast lake on which inhabit two or civilized than three great nations much more populous-another Indians and out of that lake a great river disembogues into the South Sea which is doubtless the same with that before mentioned the head of the two rivers d being little distant from each other4 Here then is the beginning of a belief in a great salty lake as well as the fabulous river later known general- ly as the Buenaventura that lake with the Pacific Ocean 4 Quoted from was So believed to connect that it was that rumors of the and Survey of the Exploration Stansbury 151-1- Valiev of Great Salt Lake 56 |