HUMBOLDT RIVER AND VALLEY. 85 
June 8.—Leaving camp at 6 o'clock this morning, we passed the summit of the mountain, 
and descended the opposite slope on the banks of a fine creek which flows into a desert plain in 
the southern part of the succeeding valley. This valley is ten miles wide where we entered it, 
and extends to the south and west entirely around the next western mountain-range, which is 
elevated and quite snowy towards the north, where it is terminated by a high peak marking 
the southern border of Humboldt valley. The soil is light and covered with artemisia. In 
entering it we changed our course considerably northward, and passed over a low spur of the 
western mountain, where it descends to the valley of the Humboldt river. In entering this 
plain, we returned to the proposed line for the railroad. . The valley of the Humboldt, as seen 
here, is from eighteen to twenty miles wide, its soil very light and friable, with extensive dis- 
tricts of sand, more or less covered with the several varieties of artemisia, which occupy so 
large a proportion—at least nine-tenths of the plains—of our territory between the Rocky and 
Sierra Nevada mountains, and characterize its vegetation. To the south of the river, and for a 
short distance to the north, the mountains are generally similar to those we have so recently 
crossed, which run out as they approach the valley. Many of them do not exceed twenty or 
thirty miles in length, and are easily passed around upon the general level of the plain. They 
are generally very narrow, and, in their elevation, seem nowhere to have disturbed the strata 
of the plain above which they rise; or, more properly, the earth of the plains—for they are 
without rocks—seems to have been deposited since their elevation. 
Four miles from the mountain we reached the river, and encamped. The river-bottom is a 
mile wide, the stream, just level with its banks, winding, from side to side, to where the 
second banks or bluffs, twenty feet high, rise to the level of the main plain of the valley. 
Willows line the stream in many parts, but trees are nowhere seen on the Humboldt. Its 
water, even at this season, is not superior, and becomes less so as you descend it, and as it 
subsides after the spring rise. It is now 40 yards wide when all collected in one channel, and 
eight feet deep, flowing with a moderate current. There are no fish in this part of it larger 
than minnows. The width and character of the valley as here given extends as far as we 
can see, many miles above and below, and is precisely like the portion we entered at the foot 
of the Humboldt mountains, and such is its general character. It is infested with mosquitoes 
and sand-flies. The day has been very pleasant. March, 30.26 miles. The altitude of camp 
above the sea, 4,141 feet. T" E 
June 9.— We moved camp but 6.80 miles down the river to a point selected for crossing it, 
where it has no bottom-land upon it. These low lands being very much overflowed at this 
season, and miry, are entirely impassable for horses or cattle; and many arriving here ina 
weak condition, are annually lost by emigrants from becoming mired. But one of the chief 
causes of the loss of cattle by emigrants upon this stream, is allowing them to eat the grass 
in the river-bottom, which is extremely unwholesome. The more experienced stock-drovers 
to California, send their cattle back from the river to feed on the nutritious grass of the hills ; 
but, as these are frequently distant from the road and from water, it is only by experience that 
men learn its importance. 
