[ 174] 214 
= 
dry, in others covered with ice; the travelling being very bad, through 
deep fine sand, rendered tenacious by a mixture of clay. e weather 
cleared up a little at noon, and we reached the hot springs of which we 
had seen the vapor the day before. There was a large field of the usual 
salt grass here, peculiar to such places. The country otherwise is a per- 
fect barren, without a blade of grass, the only plants being some dwarf 
Fremontias. We passed the rocky cape, a jagged broken point, bare and 
torn. The rocks are volcanic, and the hills here have a burnt appear- 
» ance—cinders and coal occasionally appearing as at a blacksmith’s forge. 
We crossed the large dry bed of a muddy lake in a southeasterly direction, 
and encamped at night without water and without grass, among sage bushes 
covered with snow. The heavy road made several mules give out to-day; 
and a horse, which had made the journey from the States successfully thus 
far, was left on the trail. 
January 3.—A fog, so dense that we could not see a hundred yards, 
covered the country, and the men that were sent out after the horses were 
bewildered and lost; and we were consequently detained at camp until 
late in the day. Our situation had now become a serious one. We had 
reached and run over the position where, according to the best maps in 
my possession, we should have found Mary’s lake, or river. We were 
evidently on the verge of the desert which had been reported to us; and 
the appearance of the country. was so forbidding, that I was afraid to enter 
it, and determined to bear away to the southward, keeping close along the 
mountains, in the full expectation of reaching the Buenaventura river. 
This morning I put every mam in the camp on foot—myself, of course, 
among the rest—and in this manner lightened by distribution the loads of | 
the animals. We travelled seven or eight miles along the ridge border- _ 
ing the valley, and encamped where there were a few bunches of grass on 
the bed of a hill torrent, without water. There were some large artemi- 
sias; but the principal plants are chenopodiaceous shrubs. The rock com- 
sing the mountains is here changed suddenly into white granite. The 
fog showed the tops of the hills at sunset, and stars enough for observations 
in the early evening, and then closed over us as before. Latitude by ob- 
” 
servation, 40° 48’ 15”. 
Janua 
water. Our animals now were in a very alarming state, and there was in- 
these, that animals which are about to die leave the band, and, coming 
into the camp, lie down about the fires. We moved toa place where 
there was a little better grass, about two miles distant. Taplin, one of our 
best men, who had gone out on a scouting excursion, ascended a mountain - 
near by, and to his great surprise emerged into a region of bright sunshine, 
in which the upper parts of the mountain were glowing, while below all. 
s a obscured in the darkest fog... : 
. —The fog continued the same, and, with Mr. Preuss and Car- = 
mountain, to sketch the leading features of the country, 
of our future route, while Mr. Fitzpatrick explored the 
Short distance we had ascended above the mist, _ 
