Indians. Hafen and Young, op. cit., p. 60. See also Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming (San Francisco, 1890), p. 683.
11. "At the distance of ten miles from the fort, we entered the sandy bed of a creek, a kind of defile, shaded by precipitous rocks, down which we wound our way for several hundred yards to a place where, on the left bank, a very large spring gushes with con- siderable noise and force out of the limestock rock. It is called 'the Warm Spring' . . ." Fremont, op. cit., p. 46.
12. "We were approaching a ridge, through which the river passes by a place called 'caiion' (pronounced kanyon), a Spanish word, signifying a piece of artillery, the barrel of a gun, or any kind of tube; and which, in this country, has been adopted to describe the passage of a river between perpendicular rocks of great height . . ." Fremont, op. cit.,
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13. Independence Rock is a granite pile, a relic of the glacial age, that rises above the plain on the north side of the Sweetwater River in Central Wyoming. Between the rock and the river ran the combined Oregon -Mormon-California trails. Father De Smet, in 1840, wrote: "It might be called the great registry of the desert." Some authorities give the Ashley-Henry trappers of the early 1820's credit for naming the landmark, upon which, it is said, they held a celebration on July 4 and engraved the words "Independence Rock." Fremont left the impression of the cross deeply carved on its face. Howard R. Driggs, Westward America (New York: American Pioneer Trails Association, 1942), pp. 96-100.
14. Devil's Gate, about six miles west of Independence Rock, is a chasm through which flows the Sweetwater River. Driggs, op. cit., p. 10 1. The Gate is described in many annals of the pioneers. Clayton gives the measurements under date of June 21, 1847, as the baro- metrical measurements by Elder Orson Pratt. The rock on the east side is perpendicular, 399 feet 4'/4 inches high. The one on the west side is about the same height but bends a little from the river gradually to the top. William. Clayton^s Journal: Diary Record of the Original Company of Mormon Pioneers from Nauvoo, Illinois, to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, Published by the Clayton Family Association (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret News, 192 1 ) .
15. The "Mormon guide" was undoubtedly William Clayton's The Latter-Day Saints^ Emigrants^ Guide: Being a Table of Distances, Showing All the Springs, Creeks, Rivers, Hills, Moiintains, Camping Places . . . from Council Bluffs to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake . . . (St. Louis, 1848). The reference to Devil's Gate is on p. 15. Clayton pre- pared the guide from his own observations and the records of Orson Pratt's roadometer. The guide was reprinted in Leander V. Loomis (Edgar M. Ledyard, ed.). Journal of the Birmingham Emigrating Company (Salt Lake City, 1928).
16. Captain Thomas Duncan. The Mounted Riflemen, according to the Act of Con- gress passed on May 19, 1846, comprised ten companies. An appropriation of $76,500 was allowed for mounting and equipping these troops. Duncan was in Company E, which consisted of five officers and fifty-eight men. Hafen and Young, op. cit., pp. 138-42.
17. The Mormon Guide, under "Pacific creek (crossing)" remarks: "After you leave here you will find a good road, but very little water." Of the Dry Sandy, nine miles farther on, the Guide says: "The water brackish, and not good for cattle. Very little grass, but no wood." Six miles beyond that came the "Junction of the California and Oregon roads. Take the left hand road." And it was 7 74 more miles to the Little Sandy. Clayton, op. cit., pp. 16-17.
18. The Green River, the "Rio Verde" of the Spaniards and the "Seedskeedee" (or "Siskadee") of the Crow Indians, rises in the Rockies in what is now the State of Wy- oming and flows into the Colorado River.
