Show 264 explorer and several of his men crossed on horseback from the mainland to Antelope island on a sandbar "without same wetting the saddle girths" definite information of lasting A value vas obtained Depth of water on that sandbar w as observed constantly by early Mormons who passed frequently to Antelope Island by wagon and on horseback and by boatmen who crossed the bar when water was deep enough is authentic information concerning the lake depth at any given time prior to Fremont’s island visit However there is some interesting second hand and circumstantial information concerning lake fluctuations before the advent of white men When Osborne Russell visited the "Eutaw" Indians located at the southeast end of the lake in There no in his journal The chief’s son had just come from the largest island in the lake Antelope Island where he had spent the winter He had gone back and forth by means of a large raft made of bulrushes Large numbers of antelope were on The old chief could recollect the time the island when Buffalo passed from the mainland to the island without swimming The depth of the water was increasing The buffalo had long since left the shores of the lake Although no actual time is indicated this tends to prove that at one time in the not too distant past the lake was at a very low level 1841 he recorded 4 John 5 C Fremont Osborne Russell Memoirs of My Life 431 Journal of a Trapper 122 |