AN UNTOWARD DESCENT. 295 



valleys ; crossed a small creek about eight miles 

 from camp, descending rapidly all the way for 

 about eighteen miles. 



Came on to the top of a high basaltic moun- 

 tain, that seemed to offer an almost perpendicular 

 descent into a deep gorge or canon. I rode right 

 and left, but discovering no better place, down we 

 went ; how the mules managed to scramble to the 

 bottom without falling head over heels I know 

 not, but we got safely down. I believe it would 

 have been utterly impossible to have got up over 

 it a second time. Through the gorge ran a large 

 swift stream, called by the Indians Wychus creek, 

 in which we found a good fording-place and got 

 over it; safely camped about a mile below the 

 place we forded. The camp was completely shut 

 in by almost vertical cliffs of basalt and tuffa, 

 covered thickly with what I take to be ancient 

 river-drift; the cliffs were, I should say, quite 

 100 feet high. 



The great black butte down which we scram- 



o 



bled was a volcano, and an active one too, not 

 a very long time ago ; streams of lava, just like 

 slag, that had run in a molten state as if from 

 out a huge glass furnace, reached from its sum- 

 mit to its base; and the red cindery earth, on 

 either side this congealed stream, told plainly 



