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Show 60 INDIAN DEPREDATIONS toric and tragic it is the burial place of a small party of employees of the United States, where, over forty years ago, Captain Gunnison and a por-tion of his military escort fell easy victims to a band of revengeful Indians. " The memorable spot is situated nearly midway in the Pahvant valley, about thirty miles west of the Canyon range, and twenty- five miles east of the House mountains. " Except where narrowed in by encroaching mountains, the valley stretches out in an almost un-broken plain to the great Salt Lake, one hundred and fifty miles distant to the north. " About two miles to the south, the monotony of the desert- like plain is relieved by a basaltic mesa, t> dark volcanic mass which rises abruptly from the level country to a height of perhaps two hundred feet, the surface of which was swept by the waves of ancient Lake Bonneville, until it is nearly as smooth as the surrounding plain. " Dotting the valley in the vicinity are numerous shallow lakes, formed by the overflow of the Sevier Eiver whose sinuous trails across the valley is in-dicated by patches of scrub willows. " The small lake first mentioned, is separated from the river by a small strip of ground occupied by grass and willows which abound in the immediate vicinity, both sides of the river ( which is only four to six rods wide) being fringed with them. Rising grad-ually from the lake towards the north and east, the ground is three to five feet higher than the surface of the water, and is covered with a stunted growth of grease wood and shadscale, ( the local name given to a low- growing thorny shrub). Patches of saline |