We are now regularly settled on the Bear River, and have, as yet, seen no signs of human life round about us.  The reports, therefore, which we heard at Weber’s Creek, of the gold-finders having penetrated into this valley, would appear to have been without foundation.  We have observed a fresh-made trail, which the old trapper seems to consider passes in the direction of the Truckee Lake; and we have noticed the remains of several camp-fires at different parts of the valley.  In all probability this trail has been made by the Mormon emigrants, who are reported to have gone on a gold-hunting expedition across the salt desert to the shores of the Great Salt Lake, a distance of seven or eight hundred miles.  The old trapper had some wonderful stories to tell about the dangers of the journey across the Salt Plain.  How that a man has to travel, from the first faint break of grey light in the morning, as hard as his horse will carry him, over a desert of white salt—­which crunches and crumbles beneath his horse’s tread at every step he takes—­until the sun has gone down behind the tall peaks of the distant Sierra Nevada.  No water but of the most brackish kind can be procured to refresh either horse or rider through the whole of this weary route, while their lips are parched with thirst, and their eyes and nostrils become choked from the effects of the saline exhalations rising up on all sides from the desert over which they are passing.  And as for the Great Salt Lake, the desolate shores of this inland sea have been, for the most part, carefully avoided by both Indians and trappers, and no living being has yet been found daring enough to venture far on the bosom of its dark turbid waters; for a belief exists that a terrible whirlpool agitates their surface, ready to swallow up everything that may venture within the bounds of its dangerous influence.

Our cradles were finished on Monday, and the shanty on Saturday afternoon.  It includes a sort of outhouse for cooking, and the rude palisades around are quite sufficient protection for the horses against any attempts the Indians are likely to make to drive them off.  As soon as our building labours were over yesterday, we set to work digging and washing, and were very successful.  The country about here is of course much more rugged than in the lower diggings.  Grass is plentiful in the valley, but the rocky heights are covered with a stinted vegetation, offering no food to our horses.  The soil, mineralogically considered, does not seem to vary materially from that in the neighbourhood of Weber’s Creek.  If anything, it is more impregnated with gold.  On Friday, Don Luis discovered a large rough lump in a canone about a mile from the shanty; and the next evening a similar lump, though rather smaller, was picked up by Bradley in one of his hunting excursions.