OCR Text |
Show SAGE CREEK- NORTH FORK OF THE PLATTE. 243 wagon or railroad, has thus been traced, presenting fewer obstacles to the construction of either than almost any tract of the same length in the country. The grades will be easy, the bridging comparatively light; and, with the exception of the crossing of the valley of the Muddy, where a long and heavy embankment may be required, the cuttings and fillings will be entirely within moderate limits. In no case will an inclined plane be required; and the route is more than usually free from the objection of high and narrow cations, liable to be filled up or obstructed by snow during the winter. Saturday, September 21.- Morning clear and bright. Ther. at sunrise, 35°. Ice formed in the buckets during the night. Passing down the right bank of the little drain upon which we had encamped, we encountered the usual impediments from thick arte-misia, and numerous little gullies, many of which were deep and difficult to cross. To avoid them, we turned more to the south, and. crossed Sage Creek, an affluent of the Platte, about four miles above its mouth. The water was eight feet wide, and three or four inches deep, with a free current, and vertical clay banks. This part of the route was over a Band and clay soil, denuded of vegetation, and strewn over with blaek schorl gravel, and an immense quantity of white quartz pebbles, in angular fragments, that did not seem to have been water- worn. After the crossing of Sage Creek, upon approaching the Platte, we encountered many ravines coming down from a ridge on our right, the intervening ground being washed almost entirely bare of grass or vegetation of any kind. In many places the surface of the ground was covered with small broken fragments of crystallized sulphate of lime, of a rich brown colour, mostly as clear as mica, ( for which, indeed, it was at first mistaken,) and many specimens were perfectly transparent. Large quantities of pure white quartz gravel, also, were brought down from the hills, and lay mingled with the gypsum. After a march of sixteen miles, we encamped on the left bank of the North Fork of the Platte, in a lovely bottom, amid picturesque groves and clumps of gigantic cotton- woods. The ground was covered with a luxuriant growth of nutritious grasses, among which buffalo- grass was quite abundant. In this region the bottom land is principally confined to the left bank, and is from a quarter to half a mile in width. On the right bank are escarpments of rock a hundred and fifty or two hundred |