9^2 The American Naturalist. 
emigrants. Coming from the east, they reached the i 
with parched mouths, and eyes aching from the heat and dust, 
expecting to find water for themselves and animals. There is no 
water in thiS mountain, and the horses gave out in endeavoring 
to continue their way through its fastnesses. They lay down 
and died, and nothing remained of the party but a few whitened 
bones, and the iron tires of the wagon wheels. Many experienced 
hunters have been lost in this desert, and two years after my visit, 
one of the oldest rangers of Oregon entered it, and was never 
heard of afterwards. And it is indeed easy to miss the few small 
springs that are found at remote intervals in this desolation of one 
hundred and fifty miles diameter east and west and north and 
south. 
We mounted our horses, and were glad to retrace our steps 
before darkness should overtake us. We kept along the southern 
boundary of the sand dunes as a guide, and at last struck our 
outward-bound trail. To reach our camp was then not difficult, 
and we were soon busy housekeeping round the camp-fire: After 
a night's refreshing sleep we returned by the way we came, 
to Silver Lake. Thence we took the road north to the Dalles of 
the Columbia, as already described in the Naturalist for 1888, 
p. 996. 
