The Beer 
Spring— 
Journey to 
Fort Hall 
pieces of lava, and satisfied us that we were on the 
edge of the so-called great lava plain which is said 
to stretch in northwesterly direction about one hun- 
dred miles across the Snake River. 
This lava consists of grayish black, porous, very 
heavy and hard pieces, varying much in size, some- 
times covering the ground in flat layers, sometimes 
however in walls ten or fifteen feet high and several 
hundred feet in length, going down vertically on one 
side and running back to the level on the other in 
one connected mass. Nowhere in this region could 
I find anything like craters to whose extinct volcanic 
activity in prior ages these results could be ascribed. 
They seemed rather to have originated in so-called 
earth fires. The neighborhood of Beer Spring forms 
a center of this land of slags. At least I have not 
seen elsewhere these scoriz, lying flat as well as built 
in walls, more frequent or more characteristic of the 
country. About Beer Spring the lava bed is covered 
with a very white potter’s clay. Out of a hill formed 
of this clay, the white clay hill, arises a clear fresh 
brook that flows into the Bear River. About half 
a mile off is the bottom of this valley abounding in 
springs. It lies in 44° north latitude and 109° west 
longitude, on the eastern bank of Bear River. It is 
shaped like an amphitheater. On the south it is 
bounded by the Bear River, running from east to 
west, and by hills beyond the river, covered with 
pine; on the three other sides it is enclosed by a chain 
of low sandy, cone-shaped hills, in part bare, in part 
