As evidenced by Young’s statement that immediately follows, Pratt’s comments apparently addressed desert regions in California and around the Colorado River. Many contemporary accounts of the Mexican territory of Alta California described these regions. One traveler wrote that “the territory lying north and south of the Colorado of the West” was “a howling desolation.” Another writer related that “Catholic missionaries and American traders” who had traveled to the region between the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Rocky Mountains described it as “a desert of sandy plains, and rocky hills, and lakes and marshes, having no outlet to the sea . . . and from their accounts it seems to be certain that this region, with the exception, perhaps, of the portion immediately adjacent to the Colorado River, must ever remain uninhabited.” (Farnham, Travels in the Californias, 302; Greenhow, History of Oregon and California, 20.)

Farnham, Thomas J. Travels in the Californias, and Scenes in the Pacific Ocean. New York: Saxton and Miles, 1844.

Greenhow, Robert. The History of Oregon and California, and the Other Territories on the North-West Coast of North America; Accompanied by a Geographical View and Map of Those Countries, and a Number of Documents as Proofs and Illustrations of the History. 3rd ed. New York: D. Appleton, 1845.