One needs a lot of time to keep up with the contributors to this listserve, and at the end of the semester and the beginning of the holidays, time is short for me. I have a few comments on some of the relatively recent postings concerning Lassen and his cutoff. In particular, the discussion of Peter Lassen became even more interesting with the further contribution of Don Buck and Tom Hunt on December 3: "How Good Was Lassen's Trail." They are doing much to revive Lassen's reputation. A couple of comments on their posting:

First, with regard to the difficulties of the trail. As I read the record there is little doubt about the miseries of the goldrushers on the Applegate and Lassen trails in 1849. We have gone over that. Don Buck and Tom Hunt make a good case that these miseries were not caused by the intrinsic difficulties of the trails, which were likely to have been considerably easier than either the Donner or the Carson passes. This conclusion is consistent with the many diaries and letters that I have read by goldrushers on that trail. As I see it, the problems were caused primarily by two items of misinformation common among the gold rush companies at Lassen's meadow in August and September, 1849. One was the difficulty of the route from the meadows on the Humboldt to Black Rock (including the difficulty of getting water at Rabbit Hole Springs), and the other was the total distance to the gold fields or to Lassen's ranch. These important bits of misinformation caused many not to prepare properly and thus they suffered the hardship. What is strange is that good information was available and that McGee and Myers, at least, should have known about Rabbit Hole Springs and the total distance. With regard to the trip to Black Rock, in addition to McGee and Myers experience on the trail, at least some goldrushers, Israel Hale for instance, had the Applegate waybill that gave the distance to Goose Lake and gave good advice for travelers, such as sending a party ahead to Rabbit Hole Springs to dig out the springs. But many took little water from the meadows. With regard to the total distance, even if McGee and Myers thought that the Pit River was the Sacramento, they would have known that the distance to Lassen's Ranch was some 200 miles from Goose Lake and that even on Burnett's reasonably good road there would be little grass for the stock or food along the way at that time of year. The total distance should have been obvious to anyone with the Fremont-Preuss 1845 map, and we know many had that map. Some goldrushers figured this out. Charles Glass Gray of the Newark Company was always checking his maps and he wrote on August 18 that they had "rec'd some information" that the diggings were only 150 miles from the fork: "I however, who had studied the maps well, didn't believe it & would be glad to get off at 350."

Second, with regard to the speculation that Burnett might have been behind the "committee report" written after Lassen, Burnett, and the others in their trains reached Lassen's ranch in October 1848. Burnett surely did not mind the publicity for the route north from Lassen's ranch and there must have been some connection between Burnett's letter of Nov. 8, 1848, and the article published in the Star and Californian, the Oregon Spectator, and the New York Herald. It seems more likely, however, that Lassen copied from Burnett's letter rather than Burnett having written the "committee report." There is simply too much dissonance between Burnett's description of the Lassen party when the Oregonians found them on the trail, and the over-the-top lauding of Lassen in the "report" and the letters to the newspapers.

Third, I found Will Bagley's quote of Charles Glass Gray's Overland Journal, September 22, 1849, interesting and significant. This was that "Last night Lawson [presumably Peter Lassen], whom we saw about a week ago arrived having given up his place in the exploring expedition & returns home on account of has bad health." A week before September 22, 1849, Gray and his Newark Company were up around Goose Lake (they didn't get to Lassen's Ranch until October 3). If Lassen was around Goose Lake at that time he was not at his ranch all of the fall of 1849. Did he go all the way to the meadows? What did Gray mean "given up his place in the exploring expedition." Sounds to me like the mystery deepens.

Finally, on another topic, I want to thank Art Porter, Will Bagley, and Wendell Huffman for the biographical references about Lassen. I will certainly follow these up. Just eyeballing the list, I still think there would be room for a modern book length biography of Peter Lassen. Lassen's life in California could be the centerpiece of a history of Northern California from about 1843 to 1856. What a wonderful cast of characters in addition to Lassen: Fremont, Gillespie, Burnett, Chiles, Myers, McGee, Hudspeth, Warner, and others. I doubt I could interest a Ph.D. student here at George Mason University in Virginia in such a study, but there must be others in western universities looking for such a topic. And if one could team with someone who reads Danish, it would be even better.

Dick Stillson