United States

  Mode of procuring the Gold 
  Extent of Gold Region 
  Price of Provisions.

It will be seen, from the later accounts that each new report continues to realize the wildest expectation. The following letter dated Monterey, November 16th, is highly interesting -

  Coscumne River 
  Mickelemes River 
  Ford of the San Joaquin 
  Extensive plain 
  Tule marshes 
  Large droves of wild horses and elk 

  Outfit, etc., and advice to intending Emigrants.

  Leave the mission 
  Clover 
  Wild mustard 
  A carreta 
  Family travelling 
  Arrive at Pueblo de San Jose 
  Capt. Fisher 

  Periodical winds 
  Dine on board the Portsmouth 
  A supper party on shore 
  Arrival of Commodore Stockton at San Francisco 
  Rumours of rebellion from the south 
  Californian court 

We declined the offer of a roof that night, preferring to sleep in the open here, for the evening was quite warm. We went to work the next morning when the whistle sounded at the dredge. Beyond caulking a few leaks in the boats, little was done with them. The tin receptacles holding our photographic plates and films were carefully coated with a covering of melted paraffine; for almost anything might happen, in the one hundred miles of rapid water that separated us from our home.

Early in September of 1911 my brother Emery and I landed in Green River City, Wyoming, ready for the launching of our boats on our long-planned trip down the Green and Colorado rivers.

There was little of the spectacular in our work the next day as we slowly and laboriously dragged an empty boat upstream against the swift-running current, taking advantage of many little eddies, but finding much of the shore swept clean. I had ample opportunity to ponder on the wisdom of my attempt to save time by running the Soap Creek Rapid instead of making a portage, while we carried our loads over the immense boulders that banked the stream, down to a swift piece of water, past which we could not well bring the boats or while we developed the wet plates from the ruined plate-holders.

All this preparation - and still more, the vexatious delays - had been a heavy tax upon us. We needed a vacation. We took it - six pleasant care-free days - hunting and fishing as we drifted through the sixty miles of southern Wyoming. There were ducks and geese on the river to test our skill with the shot-gun. Only two miles below Green River City Emery secured our first duck, a promise of good sport to follow. An occasional cottontail rabbit was seen, scurrying to cover through the sage-brush, when we made a detour from the boats.

How long we had waited for this view! How many memories it recalled - and how different it seemed to our previous visit there! Then, the high water was on, and the turquoise-tinted mineral water of the Colorado Chiquito was backed up by the turbid flood waters of the Rio Colorado, forty feet or more above the present level. Now it was a rapid stream, throwing itself with wild abandon over the rocks and into the Colorado.