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Show 5 6 FROM GEEEN RIVER quartz, with what appear as little sprigs of moss imbedded in it. These little moss- like particles are deposits of oxide of iron, which take place during the formation of the stone. The best specimens are highly prized for jewelry. Obtaining a very pretty fragment, I sent it to California to be cut, and set in a ring. I was quite surprised at the dif ference made in the appearance of the stone by polishing. As found, it was quite opaque ; but when returned in the ring, it was almost transparent. I shall preserve this as a memento of a trip across the Rocky Mountains. One day's march from Church Butte, and we were at Fort Bridger, which is the oldest military station passed on the march, save Fort Kearney. The site is that of a former trading- post of an old mountaineer of the name the Fort now bears. He has long been known to officers of the army on the frontier as a guide and interpreter. The present military post was established in 1858, after the arrival of Gen. Albert Sidney's Johnston's expedition against the Mormons. It is situated 120 miles east of Salt Lake City, and the immediate site of the Fort is a locality occu pied by Brigham Young and his followers when seeking their new Zion in Salt Lake Valley in 1847. A tall stone wall a parallelogram in shape built by the Mormons for protection against the Indians, still stands just below the parade ground. Black's Fork, to which I have before alluded as a tributary of Green River, rises in the Uintah Mountains, and before reaching the Fort divides into five branches, one of which passes directly through the post, affording an abundant supply of clear, cool, and the most delicious water, fresh from the mountain springs. About a mile below the post these branches unite again and form one stream, thence to the river where it empties. The fort is located in an extensive basin, surrounded by a succession of table- lands, rising one above the other, which are styled * c benches." These benches are so level, and their slope so regular, that when observed from a short distance, they ap pear not unlike an embankment for a railroad over a low flat country. The soil on the surface of this entire section of |