Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-09-02

DuG else ueCluuOuS aDOVi
the size of the dwarf willow. AT Shell Creek
As miles from Pleasant Valley, where we spen
our next night, there is little garden-th,
first since Camp Floyd-and at Ruby Valley
90 miles or so further on, the government ha.
farm in crop, intended for the benefit anC
partly cultivated by the labor of the neighbor
ing Indians. The mail-station also has it.
garden, and is cutting an abundance of hay
At Ruby, the stage usually stops for the
night; but, starting at 8 P. NJ, we had reached
the next ZINE Valley station, 40 miles dis
tant, before sunrise. We soon rose from Pine
valley by long, irregular, generally moderate
ascent, to mountain divide, from which om
trall took abruptly down the widest and worst
canon ever saw traversed by carriage. II
is IN places barely wide enough at bottom for a
carriage, and if two should meet here it is
scarcely possible that they should pass The
length of this canon is a mile and a half; the
descent hardly less than 1000 feet the side OF
the road next to the water-course often far
lower than the other; the road-bed is often
made of sharp-edged fragments of broken
rock, hard to stand on, harder still to hold
back on. The heat in this canon on a sum-
mer afternoon is intense, the sun being able to
enter 1t while the wind is not. Two or three
glorious springs afford partial consolation to
the weary, thirsty traveller. | am confident
no passenger ever rode down this rocky lad.
der; trust that none will until a better road
Is made here; though good road in such
gulch is scarcely possible. Fifteen miles
further, across plain and lower range of
nils, brought our mail wagon at last, about Z
p NJ, OF It's seventh day from Salt Lake City,
to the Humboldt
L wish to record my opinion, that the Hum.
boldt, all things considered, is the meanest
river OF its length on earth. Rising in the
humboldt Mountains, hardly $50 miles west
OF Salt Lake, 1t is at first a pure stream-or
rather streams, for there are two main branch
es-but Is soon corrupted by its alkaline sur
roundings, and its water, for at least the low
er half OF Its course, is about the most detesta-
Bile l ever tasted. Though $50 miles in
length, 1t is never more than decent mill
stream lpresume it is the only river of equal
length that never had even a canoe launched
upon Its bosom. Its narrow bottom or inter
vale produces grass, but so coarse in structure
and SO alkaline by impregnation that no sensi-
pie man let his stock eat it if there were any
alternative. Here, however, there is none
Cattle must eat this or die-many of them eat
1t and die. One of the most intelligent emf
grants L conyersed with on its banks informed
me that he had all the grass for his stock now
ed, as he had found by experience that his cat
tie, II grazed upon it, pulled up much of their
grass by the roots, and these roots were far
L
mad seen barrenness before-on the upper
course of the Republication the North
Platte, Green River, &c.-but l was green, if
the regions washed by those streams were not
Here, on the Humboldt, Famine sits en-.
throned, and waves his scepter over domn-
ion expressly made for him. On the above
named rivers, regarded cottonwood with CON
tempt; here, belt, even the narrowest fringe
of cottonwood, would make comparative
Eden AS the only considerable stream in the
Great Basin that pursues a general east and
west direction, the Humboldt may continue for
years to be travelled; but | am sure no one
ever left it without a sense of relief and thank
fulness. There can never be any considerable
settlement here.
After course, at first west by south, then
north by west, afterward southwest, and for
the last 5O miles due south, the river tails into
Lake humboldt, line sheet of clean water
perhaps 10 miles in length and 40 in circum-
ference. l tried to obtain an approximation to
Its depth, but could not those who have staid
beside 1t longest assuring me that no boat had
ever noated upon Its waters-a statement which
the restitution of wood in all this region rem
ders credible. l am satisfied however, that
this lake is being slowly filed up from the
i Ills @aspT aeTR S On t %s5 eas and sd
and THAT time will make great changes in its
CONFORMATION and the volume of its waters.
A stream, not so copious as the river, runs
from the Lake on the south, and flows with a
gentle, sluggish current into large tule or reed
marsh, which has no outlet, and is said to be
but moderately salt. The Lake water is ac-
counted sweeter than that of the river. Here
the Humboldt is said to sink, like the Carson,
Truckee and Walker, which issue from the
Sierra Nevada and run eastwardly into the adj
Jacent desert; but suspect they are all drank
up by evaporation and by the thirsty sands
which surround them. The Mississippi, if it
ran across the Great Basin and kept clear of
mountains, would be threatened by similar
fate.
We reached the Sink at 81 P. NJ, on Thurs
day, the 29th-scarcely two days from GRAY
ely Ford where we struck the river having
i'll those two days traversed some 220 miles of
very bad and intensely hot dusty road. AT
we were ready to pass "the Desert"-that is,
the desolate plain which separates the Sink of
the Humboldt from that of the Carson. But
one of our fresh mules was sick and could not
be replaced, and we contrived, by dexterous
mismanagement, to get stuck in bayou or
back-set of the Humboldt Sink. By little
past midnight we were at the halfway station,
where a well of decent brackish water has
been dug, and which drove of four or five
hundred mules reached about the time we did.
They stopped here to rest, however, while we
pushed on with fresh team. BY A. NJ, af-
ter riding five days and nights without rest,
we drew up at the station near the sink of the
Carson. H. G.