r 1744 128 
little grass, except in some green spots where it had collected around springs 
or shallow lakes. Within fifiy ie of the Sweet Water, the country 
changed into a vast saline plain, in many places oe, level, occasion- 
ally resembling the flat sandy beds of shallow Here the vegetation 
nsisted of a shrubby growth, among which nen several varieties of 
chenopodiaceous plants; but the characteristic shrub was Fremontia ver- 
mia ris, with smaller saline shrubs gro ing with singular luxuriance, 
and in pits places Pieri exclusive illiviite: of po 
On the evening ee the Sth, we encamped on one of these fresh-water 
lakes, which the traveller considers himself fortunate to find; and the next 
day, in latitude by observation 42° 20’ 06", halted to noon immediately at 
the foot of the southern side of the range which walls in the Sweet = 
y; on the: stn of a small tributary to that river. 
nuing e afternoon our course down the stream, which = 
dts Sientinas aes the ridge, forming a very practicable pass, we entered 
the valley ; and, after a march of about nine miles, encamped on our famil- 
larriver, endeared to us by the acquaintance of the previous expedition ; 
the night having already closed in with a cold rain storm. Our ear 
about twenty miles above the Devil’s gate, which we had been able to see 
in coming down the plain; and,in the course of the night, the clouds broke 
away around Jupiter fora short time, during which we obtained an im- 
mersion of the first satellite, the result of which agreed very nearly with 
the chronometer, giving for the mean longitude 107° 50’ 07"'; elevation 
above the sea 6,040 feet; and distance from St. Vrain’s fort, by the road 
we had just travelled, 315 miles. 
passes the ad to Oregon; and the broad smooth highway; where 
the Humerous heavy wagons of the emigrants had entirely beaten and 
crushed the the artemisia, was a happy exchange to our poor animals forthe 
sharp rocks and tough shrubs among which they had been toiling so 
long; — 
_ and we moved up the valley rapidly and pleasa santly. With very little de- 
viation from our route of the preceding year, we continued up the valley; 
and on the evening of the 12th encamped on the Sweet Water, at a point 
where the road turns off to cross to the plains of Green river. The increased 
of the weather indicated that we had attained a great elevation, 
which the ito here placed at 7,220 feet; and during the night water 
froze in the | 
‘The of the 13th was clear and cold, there being a white frost; 
and the thermome ,a little before sunrise, standin at 26.5°. Leaving 
this encampment, (our last on the waters which — towards the rising 
-sun,) we took our way along the upland, towards the dividing ridge bred 
_ Separates the Atlantic fromthe Pacific.waters, and crossed it by a road some 
niles further south than the one we had followed on ‘our return in 1842. 
is near twenty miles in width, and already traversed by 
different toads. Selecting as well as I could, in the scarcely distin- 
De serial what might be considered the dividing ridge i in this: re- 
ossed near the table mountain, at the southern extremity of the 
Pass, which i 
0 bes for the elevation above we ‘eipes of, Mexico. You ; 
oe 
hice me now Cae. sie recision. x iportgal as ae ce 
- Pp 
“gate through which commerce and travellir ing may hereafter pass-bet tween 
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