Descending from the plateau through a steep ravine into the valley, and skirting for a distance of two miles a swampy flat, we came to the first warm spring found on the route. This spring is on the right of the trail, and of small size; temperature, milk-warm, and highly impregnated with sulphur. Passing thence, the trail leads over a spur of the mountain coming in from the right, and through a deep ravine, crossing Warm Spring Creek, where we camped for the night, in company with the two hunters aforementioned. The remainder of the party did not arrive until the next day. We passed, a mile before going into camp,
near a small lake, the "wickey ups" of fifteen lodges of Crows, the Indians whose trails we had been following across the plateau. Distance traveled 18 miles.

Sixth day -- August 27. -- Barometer, 23.70; thermometer, morning, 46; elevation, 6,546 feet. We remained in camp at Hot Sprint Creek awaiting the arrival of the rest of the party. In the morning I rode down to the confluence of the two rivers and found the East Fork to be a smaller stream that Gardiner's River. This valley showed evidence of diminished volcanic action, calcareous mounds being frequently seen, which had originated in the action of hot springs, the waters of which had now ceased to flow. The valley was full of drift, and numerous prospect holes indicated the enterprise of the miners in penetrating these unknown regions thus far. At the mouth of Hot Spring Creek we found a system of sulphurous and mineral springs distributed for a distance of two miles in the bottom of the deep cañon through which the river runs. These springs were invariably small, several of them having the temperature at the boiling point; many of them were highly sulphurous, having in fact more sulphur than they could carry in solution, and depositing it in yellowish beds along their courses. Several of them were impregnated with iron, alum, and other substances. The sulphurous fumes could be detected at the distances of half a mile. The gypsum walls of the cañon were very remarkable, the excess of sulphur in the combination over the proportion of limestone giving a brilliant yellow color to the rocks in many places. The formation was usually very friable, falling with a natural slope to the edge of the stream, but occasionally masses of a more solid nature projected from the wall in curious shapes of towers, minarets, &c., while above and over all the solid ledge of trap, with its dark and well-defined columns, made a rich and beautiful border inclosing the pictured rocks below.

Standing on the margin of the stream, a few hundred yards further down, is Column Rock, a huge pile of alternate layers of basalt and amygdaloid cement, several hundred feet in height, surmounted by a Go to next page