f a great river flowing from the Rocky Mountains
to the Bay of San Francisco."

Figure 47 shows one of the maps to which Fremont refers. How interesting
it is! Compare it with a good map in your geography and you will
readily see that it is very misleading. The Sierra Nevada, one of
the greatest mountain ranges in the United States, hardly appears,
while traced directly across the map is the great Buenaventura
River which Fremont expected to find and follow eastward toward
its source near the Rocky Mountains.

If this river had really been where it was mapped, it is likely
that Fremont would have had no trouble, for if hard pressed he
could have followed the stream down to the ocean. But a wall of
snow-covered mountains lying in the way made matters very different.

Winter was coming on when the party entered what is now northwestern
Nevada, looking for the Buenaventura River. For several weeks they
toiled on, often through the snow. Concerning this part of the
journey Fremont says: "We had reached and run over the position
where, according to the best maps in my possession, we should have
found Mary's lake or river. We were evidently on the verge of the
desert, and the country was so forbidding that we were afraid to
enter it."

The party then turned south, still hoping that the river might be
discovered. After a time they came upon a large lake and travelled
for many miles along its eastern shore. One camp was made opposite
a tall, pyramid-shaped island, the white surface of which made it
conspicuous for a long distance. Fremont was much impressed by
the resemblance of the island to the pyramids of Egypt and so named
the body of water Pyramid Lake. At the southern end of the lake the
travellers found a large stream flowing into it (now known as the
Truckee River), and followed along its banks for some distance;
but as the river turned toward the west, they left it and struck
out across the country.

Fremont says again, "With every stream I now expected to see the
great Buenaventura, and Carson (Kit Carson, the famous scout) hurried
eagerly to search on every one we reached for beaver cuttings,
which he always maintained we should find only on waters which ran
to the Pacific."

[Illustration: FIG. 48.--PYRAMID ISLAND, PYRAMID LAKE, NEVADA]

But all the streams flowed in the wrong direction, until at last the
explorers grew weary of hunting for the river which had no existence.
Although it was the middle of th