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Show 32' priate1y named after the" Nestor of Scientific Travellers." It has been named on the maps, variously, as " Mary's River," "Ogden's," &c. It rises in tw? stre~ms, in mountains, west of the great salt lakes, wh1ch untte at a short distance below the trail around the south end of the lake via." Mormon City of the Lakes." The mountains in which they rise are beautiful in their outline, and abound in ~ood, water, and grass. The surrounding country is a sterile waste, covered with a volcanic saline efflorescence. Its own valley is rich and beautifully clothed with blue grass, herds grass, clover, and other nutritious grasses. Its course is marked by a line of timber, mostly cotton wood and willow trees, and is unobstructed for three hundred :niles, furnishing the requisite for the emigrants' comfort, in abundance. From the forks of the river to the "sink," the mountains are peopled by a race of Indians of the most thievish propensities, requiring, on the part of the emigrant, untiring vigilance, to prevent their stealing and killing their teams, &c. Their practice is to disable cattle, so as to make it necessary for the emigrant to leave them on the road.De always prepared to resist their attacks. The road be\ng level, and generally hard, enables you to travel over it with comparative ease. Occasionally, you have to cross the low. sand hill~, to avoid the canons, or to cut off bends in the river. Frequently, when the river passes through its canon, the rock approaches the rivers' , edge, and may render it necess~ry to cross the river a great many bmes. · The soil is light and porou~ in many places, making the travel bad on account of the continual clouds of dust arising. Many small hills occur near the road, covered with a basaltic debris. The entire country presents scorious indications. About one hundred miles below the ford numerous boiling springs oc· ... 33 eur, having a tempe:at~re sufficiently high for cooking purposes; they are 1nd1cated by the uncommon luxuri .. ance of the _grass near their edges. The emigrant frequently obta1n muscles from the bed of the river; a soup of them answers very "'"ell for a change. Through aU this valJey you had better be on the road at a very early hour; the great heat of the sun, and continued clouds of dn~t, render it unendurable in the middle of the day.Rarn seldom falls here. About twenty miles from the sink, or HUMBOLDT LAJ{E, the road takes a south-west course, and crosses a barren plain having no water, and but few sage bushes for fuel ; grass of an inferior quality -supply yourself with water. ' Some very large and remarkable petrifactions display themselves near the road &Side on this plain. After crossing the plain you reach the "Sink" (thus called from the river loosing itself in the sand at this place,) it is a low marsh, surrounded with bulrushes, and saline incrustations and emits a most disagreeable effluvia; the water connut be used for man or beast. From this place to Salmon Trout river the dis·· tance is forty miles, and must be performed in one stretch, as there is no grass nor good water on the road. About twenty miles from · the opposite edge of the wast(l, you reach several warm springs ; by cooling this water it is barely tolerable for drinking. Then the road at times passes over high undulations, and all the distance· is over a coat of dry ashy earth, so soft as to admit the feet of cattle ten or fifteen inches deep at times. ~ALl\fON TROUT RIVER, is reached near its mouth. This river takes its rise within 5 miles of the sum· mit of the Sierra Nevada, and empties into . · PYRAMID LAI{E. The name of this lake is derived from a bold . pyramid formed rock standing in the ' 3 |