and enter the lake quite roilly, and leave the lake in about the same condition, but soon gather great quantities of sediment from the fine silt of the valley and becomes very muddy-almost black, which condition continues as far we drove down the river- a mile or two.
Near the western end of Florissant lake basin we found an incline shaft cut to a depth of about 50 feet through the tertiary lake beds, and 30 or 40 feet of the beds exposed above the shaft. The whole capped by what may be a crumbling stratum of volcanic ash 3 or 4 feet in thickness. We found a shaft sunk also at the base of the east wall of the igneous dyke north of Florissant postoffice, which we are told was sunk in search for gold by a man who claimed to have found a shaft already started, presumably by the original inhabitants, with
