252 JOHN C. FREMONT. 



are accumulated a great wealth of iron and coal and 

 extensive forests of heavy timber. These forests 

 are the largest I am acquainted with in the Rocky 

 Mountains, being in some places twenty miles in 

 depth of continuous forest, the general growth lofty 

 and large, frequently over three feet in diameter, 

 and sometimes reaching five feet, the red spruce 

 and yellow pine predominating. At the actual 

 southern extremity of the Mormon settlements, con- 

 sisting of the two enclosed towns of Parawan and 

 Cedar City, near to which our line passed, a coal- 

 mine has been opened for about eighty yards, and 

 iron-works already established. Iron here occurs 

 in extraordinary masses, in some parts accumulated 

 into mountains, which come out in crests of solid 

 iron thirty feet thick and a hundred yards long. 



"In passing through this bed of mountains about 

 fourteen days had been occupied, from January 24 

 to February 7, the deepest snow we here encoun- 

 tered being about up to the saddle-skirts, or four 

 feet ; this occurring only in occasional drifts in the 

 passes on northern exposures, and in the small 

 mountain-flats hemmed in by woods and hills. In 

 the valley it was sometimes a few inches deep, and 

 as often none at all. On our arrival at the Mormon 

 settlements, February 8, we found it a few inches 

 deep, and were there informed that the winter had 



