FRANKLIN VALLEY. 
27 
torned to kindness from strangers. Their dialect was a gibberish which none of us could in 
the least understand, except when they introduced a word or two of some adjacent tribe. The 
language of the Diggers, in general, is a corruption and intermingling of a few words from 
those of each of the surrounding tribes, from whom, in part, they come themselves, it is said, 
being the B6tany Bay fellows of all the Indian tribes in the great mountain world around them. 
They live a family or two in a mountain, and know nothing beyond the rat-holes of their own 
hills, being afraid even of their next range neighbors. 
May 20.—I despatched my assistant, Mr. Eglolfstein, with a party this morning to the north¬ 
east, and to the east of the high peaks described yesterday, to make topographical sketches of 
the route, and determine with accuracy the continuousness and practicability of the railroad 
line by Pilot Peak, to which we were about to return, while with the main party I crossed the 
plain west of our morning camp, and passing between low hills on the right, which are easily 
passed around by the north by the line for the railroad, and a considerable mountain to the 
left, entered the large valley, twenty miles in width in its broadest part, by sixty in length, 
lying at the eastern base of Humboldt mountains. It connects directly with that seen to 
extend so far to the north yesterday — indeed it is here the main part of that valley, which 
could be followed by a railroad, passing by the north end of Great Salt lake, and crossing the 
Humboldt mountains by this line. It is the most fertile valley known to exist in the centre ot 
the Basin. Numerous streams descend into it from the elevated range of the Humboldt 
mountains, all the crest of which for a thousand feet below its summit is still buried in snow. 
To the largest of these streams I gave the name of Franklin river. It rises, by the union of 
several small streams, in the pass by which it is proposed to cross the mountain with the rail¬ 
road, descends to the east to the base of the mountain, and thence flows south for many miles, 
forming the most considerable lake in the valley, of which there are several, but none of great 
extent. The lakes are surrounded, and all the streams are lined, with extensive meadows of 
coarse, tall, luxuriant grass; and the water, so far as we could ascertain, at least at this season 
of the year, is fresh, but near the lakes has a strong taste of decaying vegetation. The richest 
of the lands are, unfortunately, too low and wet for cultivation to their full extent; otherwise 
it would furnish lands for a respectable settlement. 
We passed directly along the shore of one of the numerous ponds soon after entering the 
plain. It is shallow and its water colored by the clay of the soil, and not more than a mile in 
length. The day was bright and clear, and we rode for several miles in a due west course 
from this pond, although this course would bring us directly to the base of the mountains, where 
there is no possibility of crossing them; but the width of the plain is such—as we travel with¬ 
out any knowledge of the country in advance, not having been able to find a single person who 
had any knowledge of it by the line I wished to follow—that it is necessary to be sure of finding 
water and grass for our animals at night, which we could not fail to do at the foot of the snowy 
range we were approaching, although it increased the distance to travel beyond what it would 
otherwise have been. But in the middle of the plain we came upon Franklin river, the 
channel of which is thirty feet wide at present, and it has everywhere overflowed its banks; but 
in mid-summer it is doubtless a small stream. Turning north, towards the pass in the mount¬ 
ains, we encamped after a march of 21.52 miles, on the banks of the river, which are destitute 
of timber, but sage furnishes abundant fuel. _ I observed in the plain a curved line crossing 
it in a general northeast and southwest direction, and elevated perhaps 20 feet above its 
general level, evidently the shore of a lake which has existed here within a modern geological 
period. 
May 21.—To avoid ponds and miry places, we were obliged to change our course more 
to the north, and in six miles crossed the wagon-road opened by Hudspeth and Hastings in 
1846, in conducting a party of emigrants to California. It has been frequently followed since, 
but cattle are seldom in a suitable condition to cross the desert from Great Salt lake to Pilot 
Peak the same season that they leave Missouri. But it can be safely crossed by the line which 
