He left the shores of the Great Salt Lake, August 22, 1826, and proceeded south and west to Los Angeles, arriving there late in November. His exact course through Utah was long a matter of controversy[10] but with the discovery, by Maurice Sullivan, of an additional letter[11] written by Smith, the controversy was settled. It now seems certain that he followed the route proposed by the author to Maurice Sullivan (ibid.) from Utah Lake Southward to Sevier River in the vicinity of Fayette, followed it up to the mouth of Marysvale Canyon, and mistaking Clear Creek for the head of the river (evidently not recognizing the stream coming through Marysvile Canyon), passed over the divide at the head of Clear Creek and down by Cove Fort, south along the west foot of the mountains to Beaver River (which he called Lost River), on past the present site of Cedar City to the rim of the Great Basin, thence to Ash Creek along the route Escalante had taken to the Virgin River, down the Virgin to the Colorado River and across the Mojave Desert to the Coast. [Illustration: Sulphur Springs on stream called Sulphur River by Escalante (1776). Adams River by Jed Smith (1826), and Rio Virgin by the Spaniards (1840’s) emerging from canyon near Hurricane. _Photo by U. S. National Park Service._] [Illustration: Flood plain of the Virgin River at Grafton. _Photo by U. S. National Park Service._] [Illustration: Carvings by prehistoric Indians in Zion Canyon. _Photo by U. S. National Park Service._] [Illustration: Carvings by white men on a cliff two miles south of St. George (below). Message below plant reads: Jacob Peart Jr. I was sent here to raise cotten March 1858. _Photo by U. S. National Park Service._] Smith called the Virgin the Adams River in compliment to President John Quincy Adams, although it was in territory then claimed by Mexico. At the mouth of Santa Clara Creek, he fell in with a group of Paiute Indians (his printed word is Pa Ulches, probably a misprint for Pa Utches), who wore rabbit skin robes and raised a little corn and pumpkins. He called the Santa Clara, Corn Creek. On his first trip of 1826, he followed the Virgin River down through the narrows below the mouth of the Santa Clara, a hazardous undertaking since most of the channel is barely wide enough to accommodate the stream. This would have involved much wading of the stream over shifting quicksand, through deep holes and around giant rocks and boulders. On his second trip, a year later, he avoided these narrows by going up Corn Creek (Santa Clara) about twenty five miles, crossing over a pass to the drainage into Beaver Dam Wash which he followed down to the Virgin, rejoining his old route about ten miles below the narrows.[11]