64 EXPLORATIONS ACROSS THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH. 



Large numbers of Sho-sho-nees winter in Ruby Valley, on account of its being 

 wanner than the other valleys around. One of the mail party represents that as many 

 as 1,500 must have staid here last winter. At the present time they are scattered, 

 for purposes of hunting. They are a fine-looking tribe of Indians, and all those I have 

 seen have good countenances. They have generally nothing but the brush-barrier or 

 inclosed fence, summer and winter, like the Go-shoots, to protect them from the 

 weather, though some of them erect pole-lodges. Mr. Huntingdon thinks that one- 

 third of them carry guns ; the rest cany the bow and quiver. They have committed 

 no depredations lately, though last year they attempted to steal some horses from 

 some emigrants. 



A great deal of game, such as antelope and aquatic fowl, is said to abound in this 

 region, and deer and mountain-sheep are also seen. Euby Valley takes its name from 

 the circumstance, so I am informed, of rubies having been picked up in it on the west 

 side, a few miles north of the mail-station. However this may be, it is very certain 

 we could not find any, and the probabilities are that it is no more a ruby valley than 

 the others we have crossed. The mail-station at this point is at present a mere shed. 

 Pine-log houses are at present being put up. 



-The Humboldt Mountains, white with snow, have for the last two days been seen 

 at times, and have looked grand and massive. Their Indian name is Tac-a-roy, mean- 

 ing snow-mountains. They are certainly the most formidable mountains we have 

 seen since we left Camp Floyd, and are composed of siliceous limestones, quartzite, 

 coarse sandstones, &c. 



May 18, Camp No. 15, Baby Valley.— Altitude, 5,953 feet. The mules ran against 

 the cords of the barometer-tent early this morning and prostrated it, carrying with it 

 the two barometer, swhich were suspended from the tripod. Fortunately, only one 

 was affected by the accident, a little air getting into the tube, which can be easily 

 remedied. 



Thermometer at 4.45 a. m., 38°. Moved at 5 J o'clock. Struck immediately for 

 Hasting's Pass, lying southwest from mail-station, the foot of which we reach in 2.5 

 miles, and the summit by a remarkably easy ascent in 3.3 miles more. This pass leads 

 through the Humboldt range from Ruby Valley into the valley of the South Fork of 

 the Humboldt, which some call Huntingdon's Creek. For the first 'time we in this 

 pass get into Beckwith's, here coincident with Hasting's, road, both of which at the 

 present time are very indistinct. Descending from the summit, by the finest kind of 

 grade, in about 4 miles we leave Beckwitlfs and I listing's roads, which go the former 

 northwestwardly to join the old road along the Humboldt, 10 miles above Lassen's 

 Meadows, the latter northwardly to join the same road at the mouth of the South Fork 

 of the Humboldt; while we strike sonthwestwardly, over an unknown country, toward 

 the most northern bend of Walker's River, my object being to cut off the great detour 

 which the other roads make in going all around by the Humboldt River and sink to 

 reach Genoa in Carson Valley. We also now leave Chorpenning's or Mail ( 'ompany's 

 extension of my route from Hasting's Pass, it also turning northward, and joining the 

 old road near Gravelly Ford, which they follow by way of the sink of the Humboldt 

 and Ragtown, on Carson River, to Genoa. Fremont, I notice by the Topographical 



