Produced by Larry Mittell and PG Distributed Proofreaders 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 active military service in New Mexico, and has won imperishable renown by his rapid and successful subjugation of that country. The map accompanying this edition is not the one prepared by the order of government, but it is one that can be relied upon for its accuracy. July, 1847. * * * * * ADVERTISEMENT TO THE NEW EDITION. The dreams of the visionary have "come to pass!" the unseen El Dorado of the "fathers" looms, in all its virgin freshness and beauty, before the eyes of their children! The "set time" for the Golden age, the advent of which has been looked for and longed for during many centuries of iron wrongs and hardships, has fully come. In the sunny clime of the south west--in Upper California--may be found the modern Canaan, a land "flowing with milk and honey," its mountains studded and its rivers lined and choked, with gold!