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  FIFTEENTH THOUSAND.

  THE
  EXPLORING EXPEDITION
  TO THE
  ROCKY MOUNTAINS,
  OREGON AND CALIFORNIA,


  BY BREVET COL. J.C. FREMONT.


  TO WHICH IS ADDED A DESCRIPTION OF THE
  PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CALIFORNIA.

  WITH RECENT NOTICES OF
  THE GOLD REGION
  FROM THE LATEST AND MOST AUTHENTIC SOURCES.

  1852


*       *       *       *       *


PREFACE.

No work has appeared from the American press within the past few years
better calculated to interest the community at large than Colonel J.C.
Fremont's Narrative of his Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains,
Oregon, and North California, undertaken by the orders of the United
States government.

Eminently qualified for the task assigned him, Colonel Fremont entered
upon his duties with alacrity, and has embodied in the following pages
the results of his observations. The country thus explored is daily
making deeper and more abiding impressions upon the minds of the
people, and information is eagerly sought in regard to its natural
resources, its climate, inhabitants, productions, and adaptation for
supplying the wants and providing the comforts for a dense population.
The day is not far distant when that territory, hitherto so little
known, will be intersected by railroads, its waters navigated, and its
fertile portions peopled by an active and intelligent population.

To all persons interested in the successful extension of our free
institutions over this now wilderness portion of our land, this work of
Fremont commends itself as a faithful and accurate statement of the
present state of affairs in that country.

Since the preparation of this report, Colonel Fremont has been engaged
in still farther explorations by order of the government, the results
of which will probably be presented to the country as soon as he shall
be relieved from his present arduous and responsible station. He is now
engaged in