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Exploring Great Salt Lake As usual I walked along the shore preceded by the Boats & Mr Carrington; I found the exercise fatigueing as upon the higher lands thorny bushes were thickly scattered over the surface & the alternative of the beach was still worse, as at every step I sunk in the loose hot sand ankle deep The warm weather has brought into industrious existence in- numerable midges, who seem resolved to make the most of their unusual victims. It is a mystery what sanguinary little wretches live upon in the absence of humans, but presume that like all created nature even this insignificant insect finds something still more insignificant & makes the animalculoe a prey. I had a curious instance of this destroying principle today; I placed a cricket in company with a small beetle, into the box where I keep my speci- mens until I have an opportunity to transfixing them to a peice of cork. Upon turning them out I found that the cricket had sympa- thized with the sufferings of his fellow prisoner to such an extent, that he had put an end to them by eating him up bodily. Nothing was left but a bit of wing which the Cricket probably thought in- digestible & might occasion dyspepsia. I passed many abandoned "Wickiups," Lodges, these were situated in the neighborhood of water, indicated by canes & broad leaved grass. Along the beach were great numbers of a yellow clus- tering flower with an agreeable perfume & a long root like a radish. Nelson tasted & described it as having a hot & pungent flavor, he was afterwards exceedingly ill & evinced every symptom of having been poisoned. We attributed his indisposition to the small peice of root but was releived by a dose of oil which Capt S. administered. Had he swallowed more it might have occasioned his death, as the root must be a very active poison? As north, James Ross led his own expedition to attempt to find the south magnetic pole and did discover the Ross Sea and Victoria Land. John Ross published a number of works including Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a North-West Passage (London: A. W. Webster, X435), while James C. Ross published A Voyage of Discovery and Re- search in the Southern and Antarctic Regions (London: Murray, 1847). 55 The plant was probably mustard, Hutchinsia procumbens, which is found in a number of places around the lake and on some of the islands. When eaten, it stimulates the peristaltic action of the stomach and is sometimes administered medicinally for this purpose. While Hudson identified the ill man as Nelson, Captain Stansbury named him as N. Hollingshead, one of those listed by Gunnison as being hired on April 2,185O. Gwynn, 146 |
