CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BASIN AREA. 
297 
stunted Artemisia. The soil is a heavy clay, aiid the valley is not likely 
to be used by the locusts as a breeding- ground. 
The narrow valley of Smith's Fork of the Bear, which extends up that 
stream for about 20 miles, has au average width of two or three miles. 
This valley, with the hills on either side, is well grassed, and can easily 
be burned over. 
A few miles below the mouth of Smith's Fork, a second large branch 
from the right joius the Bear. This is known as Thomas' Fork. On 
this stream is a large, flue valley, covered with sage and grass. 
The valley of the Bear, between these streams, though not as broad 
as it is above, is much less inhospitable, containing more grass, and a 
more luxuriant growth of sage. 
Between the Bear and Bear Lake lies a group of hills, which toward 
the south flatten out into a rolling country, which separates the valley 
of the Bear from the drainage of the Weber. Near the railroad, this 
belt of country is poor in everything except Artemisia, and even that 
is not sufficiently luxuriant to support a conflagration. Indeed, from 
the Platte Valley westward, the Union Pacific Railroad runs through 
one of the most forbidding sections of the whole West. North of the 
railroad, as this rolling country rises and becomes defined as ranges of 
hills, its natural productions improve, so much so that in August, 1877, 
nearly the whole mass of hills east of Bear Lake were burned over by 
fires set by Indians. 
Bear Lake Valley, which may be considered to extend from the head 
of the lake northward as far as the Soda Springs, is a fine valley con- 
taining much grass among the omnipresent sage. This entire area, ex- 
cepting that covered by the lake and swamp, can be burned over, as well 
as the mountain slopes on either side for at least a thousand feet above 
the valley, that is,, to the base of the timber. 
The Bear Biver Range separates Bear Lake Valley on the east from 
Cache Valley on the west, and rises to a height of about 9,000 to 10,000 
feet above the sea. Above a certain elevation, which may be set roughly 
at 1,000 feet above the valleys, it is well, but not densely, timbered. 
Below the timber is an abundant growth of grass on a soil generally 
gravelly. South of the latitude of the head of Bear Lake this range 
breaks gradually down into bare hills, covered with sage and grass, 
which are crossed by the Weber in its westerly course to Great Salt 
Lake. These hills I should judge to be burnable. 
The valley of the Weber, which is, for the most part, merely a notch 
cut in high hills, widens out at the east base of the Wasatch Bange 
into a large fertile basin, well settled by Mormons. This valley is easily 
burnable. 
Returning to the Bear, at Soda Springs we 'find that it makes an 
abrupt turn back upon itself around the north end of the Bear River 
Range. Below this bend the river flows first through Gentile Valley, a 
small valley between the Bear River and Portneuf Ranges. This, like 
