He would recognise the spot when they reached it.
From the trappers, scouts, and guides encountered along the road they had received much advice as to eligible locations; and while this was various as to sites recommended, the opinion had been unanimous that the Salt Lake Valley was impossible.

It was, they were told, sandy, barren, rainless, destitute of timber and vegetation, infested with hordes of hungry crickets, and roamed over by bands of the most savage Indians.

In short, no colony could endure there.
One by one the trappers they met voiced this opinion.

There was Bordeaux, the grizzled old Frenchman, clad in ragged buckskin; Moses Harris; "Pegleg" Smith, whose habit of profanity was shocking; Miles Goodyear, fresh from captivity among the Blackfeet; and James Bridger.
The latter had discovered Great Salt Lake twenty-five years before, and was especially vehement in his condemnation of the valley.

They had halted a day at his "fort," two adjoining log houses with dirt roofs, surrounded by a high stockade of logs, and built on one of several small islands formed by the branches of Black's Fork.