Note 7 — Group II. BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN IDEA.

Salt Lake was known to early Spanish explorers (see p. 37); had been often visited, but not explored. Ashley of Missouri, who led a party of trappers to the heads of the Colorado in 1823, built the next year a trading-house near Salt Lake. See also Bonneville's account. Fremont's explorations disclosed the existence of a great interior basin between the Rockies and Sierra Nevada, whose waters fall into Utah and Salt Lakes instead of reaching the Columbia or Colorado.