ABANDONMENT AND DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY. 63 



merous little springs of very cold and excellent water. Grass was 

 found on a neighbouring hillside sufficient for our animals. 



The road to-day passed over from the Platte, crossing a spur of 

 of the mountains. Above this point, a high range of hills, which 

 had been observed running to the north-west, inclined rather more 

 to the north side of the river, which here forces a passage for 

 itself through a gorge of the mountain. The strata there pre- 

 sented were of red sandstone and shales, whence the name of 

 "Red Buttes." The rocks were inclined at an angle of about 25°, 

 with a dip to the west, as were also the strata on the north side. 

 The sections presented were of sandstones, white or red, shales, 

 slaty shales, and clay. Considerable quantities of nitrate and car- 

 bonate of soda were found on the surface. 



To-day we find additional and melancholy evidence of the diffi- 

 culties encountered by those who are ahead of us. Before halting 

 to noon, we passed eleven wagons that had been broken up, the 

 spokes of the wheels taken to make pack-saddles, and the rest 

 burned or otherwise destroyed. The road has been literally 

 strewn with articles that have been thrown away. Bar-iron and 

 steel, large blacksmiths' anvils and bellows, crow-bars, drills, 

 augers, gold-washers, chisels, axes, lead, trunks, spades, ploughs, 

 large grindstones, baking-ovens, cooking-stoves without number, 

 kegs, barrels, harness, clothing, bacon, and beans, were found along 

 the road in pretty much the order in which they have been here 

 enumerated. The carcasses of eight oxen, lying in one heap by 

 the roadside, this morning, explained a part of the trouble. I re- 

 cognised the trunks of some of the passengers who had accom- 

 panied me from St. Louis to Kansas, on the Missouri, and who 

 had here thrown away their wagons and every thing they could not 

 pack upon their mules, and proceeded on their journey* At the 

 noon halt, an excellent rifle was found in the river, thrown there 

 by some desperate emigrant who had been unable to carry it any 

 farther. In the course of this one day the relics of seventeen 

 wagons and the carcasses of twenty-seven dead oxen have been 

 seen. Day's march, twenty-four miles. 



Saturday^ July 28. — Morning bright and pleasant, but at 9 

 A. M. the wind rose from the south-west, and blew almost a hurri- 

 cane the whole day, tearing up the sand and gravel, and dashing 

 it into our faces, as we rode, with such violence as to cause sensi- 

 ble pain. It was impossible to look up for a moment, as the eyes 

 became immediately filled with sand, so that the teamsters were 



