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Show PILOT PEAK- INDIAN CEDAR LODGES. Ill whether even ' the best mule we had could have gone more than half a dozen miles farther. Several of them had given out in crossing the last plain, and we had f o leave them and the baggage behind^ and to return for it afterward. Another day without water and the whole train must have inevitably perished. Both man and beast being completely exhausted, I remained here three days for refreshment and rest* Moreover, we were now to prepare for crossing another desert of seventy miles; which, as my guide, informed me, still lay between us And the southern end of the lake. He had passed over it in 1845, with Fremont, who had lost ten mules and several horses in effecting the passage, having afterward* encamped on the same ground now occupied by our little party. During our stay here, it rained almost every day and night. The salt plain, which before had glistened in the snnlight like.* sheet of molten silver, now became black and sombr. e; the salt, over which we had passed with so much eafce, dissolved, and the flat, in places, became almost impassable. We had encamped at the eastern base of a range of high mountains, stretching a great distance to the north, and terminated, three miles below, in an abrupt escarpment, called Pilot Peak: upon the lofty summit of which rested a dark cloud during the whole of our stay. For three miles from the base the ascent ia gradual, the surface being Covered wrttv gravel and boulders of granite, feldspathic rock, and metamorphio sandstones, all evidently waterworn; Higher up the mountain, the only stratified rocks seen were micaceous schists and slaty shales, intersected in various directions by vein* of quartz, and very much displaced. The general dip was north by east from 70° to 80°. Proceeding south a few miles along the mountain, the same stratified rocks were again noticed, evidently much altered by heat, being interspersed with veins of granite and quartz; Dwarf cedar was growing here, and* higher up the mountain, dwarf pine; in the bottom, white and red willow, and Equitetum. In a nook of the mountain, some Indian lodges were seen, which had apparently been finished but a short time. They were constructed in the- usual conical form, of cedar poles and logs of a considerable size, . thatched with bark and branches, and were quite wartn and comfortable. The odour of the cedar was sweet and refreshing. These lodges had been put up, no doubt, by the Shoshonee Indians M their permanent winter- quarters, but haft not yet been occupied. The savages had been in the neighbourhood to Collect the nuts, of the pine- tree, called here pifion, for food, but what they |