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5,150 feet. The bearing to the entrance of the cafion below was south 20° 
ere the river enters between lofty precipices of red rock, and the 
country below is said to assume a very rugged character the river and 
its affluen aeesing | hrough cafions which forbid all access to the water. 
This sheltéred little valley was formerly a favorite wintering ground for 
the trappers, as it afforded them sufficient pasturage for their animals, and 
the surrounding mountains are well stocked with game. 
We surprised a flock of mountain sheep as we descended to the river, 
and our hunters winted several. The bottoms of a small stream called the 
Vermillion creek, which enters the left bank of the river a short distance 
below our encampment, were covered abundantly with F. vermicularis, 
and other chenopodiaceous shrubs. From the lower end of Brown’s hole 
we issued by a remarkably dry caijion, fifty or sixty yards wide, and rising, 
as we advanced, to the height of six or eight hundred feet. Issuing from 
this, and crossing a small green valley, we entered another rent of the same 
nature, still narrower than the other, the rocks on either side rising in pensty, 
vertical precipices perhaps 1,500 feet in height. These places are men 
tioned, to give some idee of the country lower down on the Colorado, to 
which the trappers ea apply the name of a cafion country. The cafion 
opened upon a pond of water, where we halted to noon. Several flocks of 
mountain sect were fais among the rocks, which rung with volleys of 
In the afternoon we entered upon an ugly, barren, and broken 
country, Pe canbidint well with that we had traversed a few degrees 
north, on the same side of the Colorado. The Vermillion creek afforded 
us brackish ah alt and indifferent grass for the night. 
A few scattered cedar trees were the only improvement of the country 
on the Helio wing oer and at a little spring of bad water, where we halted . 
to noon, we had n en the shelter of these from the a rays of the sun. 
At night we atcainti in a fine grove of cottonwood trees, on the banks of 
the Ells Head river, the principal fork of the Warapak river, commonly 
called by the trappers the Bear river. We made here a a angi coral 
and fort, and formed the camp into vigilant guards. The country we were 
now entering is constantly infested by war parties of the Sioux and other 
Indians, and is considered among the most dangerous war grounds in the 
arr mountains; parties of whites having been repeatedly defeated on 
this r 
th The characte : 
Hie along the river is F. vermicularis, which asceeatly covers the bot- 
ofgiia when with this, are ine shrubs and artemisia. The new variety 
a8 -seen on leaving the Uintah fort had now disap- 
d. The country on either side was sandy and poor, scantily wooded 
irs, but the river bottoms afforded good pasture. Three ante- 
killed in the afternoon, and we encamped a little below a branch 
ed St. Vrain’s fork. A few miles above, was. ee fort at 
