_ but where our animals fared badly; the stock of the emigrants having _ 
f 174] 132 
out afoot in breadth and several inches deep, directly from the hill side. 
noon we halted at the Jast main fork of the creek, at an elevation of 7,200 
feet, and in latitude, by observation, 41° $9' 45"; and in the afternoon con- 
tinued on the same excellent road, up the left or northern fork of the 
Stream, towards its head, in a pass which the barometer placed at 8,230 feet 
above the sea. This is a connecting ridge between the Utah or Bear river 
mountains and the Wind river chain of the Rocky mountains, separating 
the waters of the init of California on the east, and those on n the west be- 
longing more directly to the Pacific, from a vast interior basin whose rivers 
are collected into numerous lakes having no outlet tothe ecean. From the 
summit of Sy pass, the highest which the road crasses between the Missis- 
rugge “on appearance was greatly increased by the smoky weather, 
eae which the broken ridges were dark and dimly seen. The ascent 
the A summit of the gap was occasionally steeper me national road in 
om a and the descent, by way ofa spur on the wc at side, is 
er precipitous, but the pass may still be called a good one. Som 
eee of willow in the hollows below deceived us into the expectation of 
finding a camp ‘at our usual hour at the foot of fhe mountain ; but we foun 
them without water, and cohtinued down a ravine, and encamped about . 
dark at a place where the springs again began to make their appearance, 
ay “razed ‘the grass as ¢ompletely as if we were again in the midst of the 
wag 21.—An hour’s travel this morning brought us into the fertile 
po cosa a valley of Bear river, the principal tributary to the Great 
The stream is here 200 feet wide, fringed with willows and 
nce i : of hawthorns. We were now entering a region which 
for us posse and extraordinary interest. We were upon the 
mab of the famous lake which forms a salient point among the remarka- 
ble geographical features of the country, and around which the vague an 
‘superstitious accounts of the trappers had thrown a delightful obscurity, 
which we anticipated pleasure in dispelling, but ton in the mean time, 
leftia crowded field for the exercise of our imaginati 
Inmour occasional conversations with the few old ee who had visited 
the région; it had:beep a subject of frequent speculation ; and the wonders 
which: they related Were not the less agreeable because they were_ highly 
graphy; its islands had never been visited; and none were to be found 
yhad-entirely made the circuit of its shores ; and no instrumental ob- 
‘or geographical survey, of any description, had ever been made 
pasion in the neighboring region. It was generally supposed that. it 
had no visible outlet; but among the peappars: including those in my own 
camp, were man who believed that somewhere: on its surface was a ter- 
rible whirlpool, through which its waters found their w u to the ocean: 
some subterranean communication. All these things : 
. = of prans in our desuitory conversations ‘the fires at 
; and my own mind had become tolerably well filed “wit er in- | 
nite preners and insensibly colored with their romantic descriptions, 
ib 
BS the pleasure of excitement, T was well disposed to _ and 
d to realize. 
exaggerated and impossible. 
_ Hitherto this lake had been.seen only by trappers who were’ wandering ' 
thre ugh the country in search of new beaver streams, caring very little for 
bie a frequent 
