The Great Basin region was always outside the area thoroughly explored and occupied by Spaniards. It was only after the occupation of California and the need for an overland route from New Mexico that Spanish explorers, Fathers Garcés, Domínguez, and Escalante, became the “first white men to penetrate the façade of the Great Basin.”
None of the early explorers realized that they were dealing with an inland drainage area. Even after John C. Frémont made a circuit around the Great Basin, the myth of the San Buenaventura River persisted.
All of this and much more is told in delightful style by Dr. Cline. Her final paragraph caps her account, and at least partially rescues Frémont, whose descriptions of the routes across the continent are compared to those of Lewis and Clark. “His descriptive narrative of the best routes across the Great Basin and of the passes over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, combined with his glowing accounts of California, did much to stimulate emigration into that area. . .. But his greatest scientific achievement was the discovery of the true nature of the Great Interior Basin of North America.”