674 TRA VEL IN EUROPE AND AMERICA . [1877, 



over the pass into Cottonwood Canon; down that, 

 and back here, in time to go on that afternoon to 

 Ogden and thence west to Reno, thence Virginia City, 

 Carson, etc., and the Groves, Yosemite, etc. We 

 shall see, and I will let you know. 



Mrs. Gray is out with the party, to see things, and 

 Brigham Young. I will not. She would be sending 

 love to Mrs. Engelmann and you, if here. She is 

 very well, and enjoying this travel hugely. I am 

 strong, and ever yours, 



ASA GRAY. 



YOSEMITE, CAL., August 21, 1877. 



... So long without touching a pen I can hardly 

 form letters. Did I write to you from Utah ? We 

 left direct route at Reno, went to Carson City, with 

 detour to Virginia City, queer place ; first got hold 

 of Pinus monophylla, but there no fruit. 



Hired conveyance to take us from Carson right 

 across the Sierra Nevada via Silver Mountain to Cala- 

 veras Big Trees, a good way for studying the tree 

 vegetation, and other, only all other is mainly de- 

 stroyed by drought and sheep, and the ground is pow- 

 dered dust. As we struck Pinus ponderosa we were 

 struck with more tapering shape of tree and longer 

 leaves than that of Colorado, so different, and soon, as 

 we rose, by the immense size of cone, ovate, six inches 

 long, very heavy. The big-cone ponderosa has less 

 bright green and rather longer leaves, and cones look- 

 ing quite different from the ordinary Californian pon- 

 derosa, which grows intermixed, except at the higher 

 levels, and has long but narrow cones. Losing the 

 big one as we descended to Calaveras, we come on it 

 again in the Sierra here, when we get up to seven. 



