Fort Hall, in 1836, was a stockade, made of cotton-wood logs, about twelve feet long, set some two feet in the ground, with a piece of timber pinned near the top, running entirely around the stockade, which was about sixty feet square. The stores and quarters for the men were built inside with poles, brush, grass, and dirt for covering, stamped down so as to partially shed rain, and permit the guards to be upon the tops of the quarters and see over the top of the stockade. It is situated on an extensive level plain or flat, with spurs of the Rocky Mountains on the east, at the distance of thirty miles, high ranges of barren sage hills on the south, some eight miles distant. As you leave the flat level bottom formed by the Snake and Portneuf rivers, all along its banks it is skirted with a fine growth of cotton-wood, relieving the landscape and forming a beautiful contrast to the high barren plains beyond. To the west is the valley of the Snake River, from thirty to sixty miles wide, a high, sandy, and barren sage plain. This valley is bounded on the south by a low range of hills, running from northwest to southeast. On the north side of Fort Hall is an extensive high plain; this plain is, from Fort Hall, across it, full forty miles. The only objects that meet the eye on this extensive plain are three high basaltic buttes or mountains thrown up near its center. At the foot of the one a little to the south and west of the two rounder and equally prominent ones, is a fine spring of water. In 1837, the writer, in his explorations of the country, was anxious to learn more than was then known of the character of this great basin in the mountains, having the year previous entered it by way of Soda Springs and Portneuf. This time he came into it from the north by Codie's Defile, and concluded he would take a straight course and pass between the two northeastern buttes, and reach Snake River near Fort Hall. His Indian guide objected; still, as we had good horses, and were traveling light, we took the precaution to water our animals before entering this plain. We were twenty-six hours on horseback, having stopped but six hours to rest; we tied our horses to the sage brush, to prevent them from leaving us to hunt for water. Not a drop did we find on our route till we reached Snake River, thirty-two hours from the time we left running water on the north and west sides of this plain. In our course we found nothing but barren, basaltic rock, sand, and sage. It is possible, had we turned to the right or left, we might have found water, but I saw nothing that gave indications that water was near; on the contrary, I noticed that the fine stream at which we watered our animals sank into the rocks, leaving no marks of a channel to any great distance. In fact, my impression was, after twelve hours' ride, that it was useless to spend our time and strength to hunt for water, and kept our course. Jaded and fatigued as