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 cafion. 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 tufta, 
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- 
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 
