CHAPTER VI 



THE trail to Oregon, followed by traders and 

 emigrants, crosses the Rocky Mountains at 

 a point known as the South Pass, where a 

 break in the chain occurs of such moderate and 

 gradual elevation as to permit the passage of 

 wagons with tolerable facility. The Sweetwater 

 Valley runs nearly to the point where the divid- 

 ing ridge of the Pacific and Atlantic waters throws 

 off its streams to their respective oceans. At one 

 end of this valley, and situated on the right bank 

 of the Sweetwater, a huge isolated mass of 

 granitic rock rises to the height of three hundred 

 feet abruptly from the plain.* On the smooth 

 and scarped surface presented by one of its sides, 

 are rudely carved the names and initials of 

 traders, trappers, travelers, and emigrants, who 

 have here recorded the memorial of their sojourn 

 in the remote wilderness of the Far West. The 

 face of the rock is covered with names familiar to 

 the mountaineers as those of the most renowned 

 of their hardy brotherhood; while others, again, 

 occur, better known to the science and literature 



* Independence Rock, (Ed.) 

 211 



