On the northern bank of the Sweetwater are the Rattlesnake
Mountains, huge excrescences of rock, blistering out of an arid plain;
on the southern bank, the hills which bear the name of the river, and
are only exaggerations of the bluffs along the Platte. The dividing
ridge between the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific is reached in the
South Pass, at the foot of a spur of the Wind River range, a group of
gigantic mountains, whose peaks reach three thousand feet above the line
of perpetual snow. There the emigrant strikes his tent in the morning
on the banks of a rivulet which finds its way, through the Platte,
Missouri, and Mississippi, into the Gulf of Mexico,--and pitches it, at
his next camp, upon a little creek which trickles into Green River, and
at last, through the Colorado, into the Gulf of California. Not far
distant spring the fountains of the Columbia. A level table-land extends
to the fords of Green River, a clear and rapid stream, whose entire
course has never yet been mapped by an intelligent explorer. Here the
road becomes entangled again among mountains, and winds its way over
steep ridges, across foaming torrents, and through canons so narrow that
only noonday sunshine penetrates their depths, until it emerges, through
a rocky gate in the great barrier of the Wahsatch range, upon the bench
above Salt Lake City, twelve hundred miles from Fort Leavenworth.
Pages:
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334