204 VICINITY OF BEAR RIVER. 



that guard it from the world without. The only feasible entrance is 

 upon the east side through a remarkable canon sixty yards wide, formed by 

 crao-gy rocks six or eight hundred feet in altitude, succeeded by a still 

 narrower and more precipitous one, towering to a height of twelve or fifteen 

 hundred feet. 



This valley is intersected by Green river, which, emerging from the lofty 

 ridcres above, and tracing its way through the narrow and frightful caiions 

 below, here presents a broad, smooth stream, fifty or sixty yards wide, with 

 sloping banks, and passably well timbered. 



Here all the various wild fruits indigenous to the country are found in 

 great abundance, with countless multitudes of deer, elk, and sheep. 



The soil is of a dark loam, very fertile and admirably adapted to cultiva- 

 tion. Vegetation attains a rank growth and continues green the entire 



year. 



Spring wedded to summer seems to have chosen this sequestered spot 

 for her fixed habitation, where, when dying autumn woos the sere frost and 

 snow, of winter she may withdraw to her flower-garnished retreat and 

 smile and bloom forever. 



The surrounding mountains are from fifteen hundred to two thousand 

 feet high, and present several peaks where snow claims an unyielding do- 

 minion year after year, in awful contrast with the beauty and loveliness 

 that lies below. 



Few localities in the mountains are equal to this, in point of beautiful and 

 romantic scenery. Every thing embraced in its confines lends to inspire 

 the beholder with commingled feelings of awe and admiration. 



Its long, narrow gate-way, walled in by huge impending rocks, for hun- 

 dreds of feet in altitude, — the lofty peaks that surround it, clothed in eternal 

 snow, — the bold stream traversing it, whose heaving bosom pours sweet 

 music into the ears of listening sohtude, — the verdant lawn, spreading far 

 and wide, garnished with blushing wild-flowers and arrayed in the habili- 

 ments of perennial spring, — all, all combine to invest it with an enchant- 

 ment as soul-expanding in its subhmity as it is fascinating in its loveliness. 



The country contiguous to Bear river, back from the valleys, is generally 

 rugged and sterile. Sometimes the surface for a considerable extent is 

 entirely destitute of vegetation, and presents a dreary waste of rocks, or clay 

 hardened to a stone-like consistency by the sun's rays. Now and then a 

 few dwarfish pines and cedars meet the eye amid the surrounding desola- 

 tion, and occasional clusters of coarse grass intervene at favoring depres- 

 sions among the rocks. 



FARTHEST northern extremity of Mexico, where the line between the two countries 

 shall commence, and thence run due west to the Pacific ? 



But, instead of being in lat. 42*^ north, the source of the Arkansas is in lat. 39<* 

 north, as indisputably ascertained from recent explorations, and thus an interval of 

 three degrees occurs between the two points named in the above treaty! 



If the United States are obligated by this treaty to receive the 42d degree as their 

 souvhern boundary, Mexico is equally obligated to receive the parallel from the source 

 of the Arkansas due west to the Pacific, as her true northern limits ; thus, a territory 

 of eleven hundred and twenty-five miles from east to west, and nearly one hundred 

 and fortv from north to south, is left unowned by either party I 



