12 



and is spent by the miners in the wildest sorts of vice. 

 Churches are unknown, and there is nothing to remind any 

 one that it is not a week-day. M. went to Fairplay, as we had 

 heard that Osborn was there, with a message from the main 

 party. He came back to say that they intended to go to the 

 Arkansas Valley, and wanted us to come with them. In the 

 evening two men were shot in front of the hotel, in a little 

 row that took place. 



JULY 16, MONDAY. 



We left Alma at 9 A.M., and found McPherson at Fairplay. 

 We proceeded to the salt works, twenty miles south, where 

 we got our dinner. The rides over the prairie land had a 

 general sameness, which became very tiresome. These salt 

 works are now abandoned as unprofitable. Leaving here, 

 we started in full pursuit of the party, who we learned had 

 spent Sunday here, and had just gone on. This part of the 

 day's journey was very pleasant, as the Trout Creek Valley 

 is quite a pretty place. We overtook the party just as they 

 were going into camp in the Arkansas Valley, after a ride of 

 sixty miles, the longest as yet made on the trip. 



JULY 17, TUESDAY. 



M. rode down the valley of the Arkansas six miles to Hele- 

 na, the height of which place was known, and prepared to 

 make corresponding observations ; while L. set off early for 

 Mount Princeton, a very beautiful and symmetric mountain 

 immediately to the west of our camp. L. found no particular 

 difficulty until within 1,500 feet of the top, when his only 

 way lay over a bed of debris such as he had never experienced 

 before ; the size of the boulders being such that nothing but 

 the hardest sort of crawling would answer. The summit was, 

 however, reached at 12.30 P.M., and several patriotic demon- 

 strations gone through with. A large monument, six feet 

 high by three in diameter, was built, in the centre of which a 

 stick, on which the circumstances were written, was de- 

 posited and left as a memento. The scene from this point 

 of view was simply indescribable; the broad valley of the 

 Arkansas spreading immediately below, and the Sa watch 

 Mountains stretching away on either side. It rivals in beauty 

 the scene from Mount Lincoln. It does not combine such an 



