DESCRIPTION OF EASTERN SECTION 185 



Timber also abounds in sufficient quantity for all necessary purposes 

 Game too is found in great abundance, particularly deer and elk ; and, ta- 

 ken as a whole, the vicinity of the Great Salt Lake holds out strong in- 

 ducements to settlers, and is capable of sustaining, as it will no doubt ulti- 

 mately possess, a dense population. 



Forty or fifty miles west and south from this the traveller is inducted to 

 the vast expanse of sand and gravel, lying between lat. 35° and 40° north, 

 which is almost entirely destitute of both wood and water. 



This reach is upwards of three hundred miles in length and nearly two 

 hundred broad. It is impassable at all seasons of the year on account of 

 its extreme dryness and lack of suitable nourishment for animals ; and even 

 a trip from Santa Fe to Western California, by the regular trail, is rarely 

 undertaken except in the fall and spring months, at which time the ground 

 is rendered moist by annual rains and the transient streams venture to 

 emerge from their sandy hiding places. 



The Digger country, of which I have taken occasion to speak in con- 

 nection with its unfortunate inhabitants, lies upon the eastern and southern 

 extremities of this desolate waste, and presents an aspect little less for- 

 bidding. 



As a general thing the landscape is highly undulating and varied with 

 conical hills, some of which are mere heaps of naked sand or sun-baked 

 clay of a whitish hue ; others, vast piles of granitic rock, alike destitute of 

 vegetation or timber ; while yet others are clothed with a scanty herbage 

 and occasional clusters of stunted pines and cedars. 



Now and then a diminutive vega intervenes in favorable contrast to the 

 surrounding desolation, greeting the beholder with its rank grasses, mingled 

 with blushing prairie-fiowers. But such beauty-spots are by no means 

 frequent. 



The watercourses are mere beds of sand, skirted with sterile bottoms of 

 stiff clay and gravel, and atford streams only at their heads, while, for 

 nearly the entire year, both dew and rain are unknown. Vegetation, con- 

 sequently, is sparse and unpromising, and the whole section of necessity 

 remains depopulated of game. 



It is needless to say such a country can never become inliabited by civil- 

 ized man. 



"Between the Colorado river and the California mountains, south of the 

 cheerless desert above described, the prospect is far more flattering. The 

 hills are of varied altitude and are usually clothed with grass and timber; 

 while comparatively few of them are denuded to any great extent. The 

 landscape is higlily picturesque and pleasingly diversified with mountains, 

 hills, plains, and valleys, which alTord every variety of climate and soil. 



This section is principally watered by the Rio Virgen and lateral 

 streams ; and, though little or no rain falls in the summer months, the co- 

 piousness of nightly dews in some measure make up for this defect. 



The superfice of the valleys ranges from one to three feet in dejith, and 

 generally consists of sedimentary deposites and the debris of rocks, borne 

 from the neighboring hills by aqueous attrition, which, mingled with a 

 dark-colored loam compounded of clay and sand, and various organic and 

 vegetable remains, unite to form a soil of admirable fecundity, rarely equal- 

 led by that of any other country. 



