June the sixteenth. We took a new start this morning for the future of our journey. Leaving Little Deer Creek, we struck, after having met with the main road, the river, along the banks of which we passed all day and towards evening encamped within reach of it. We passed Big Deer Creek about noon; the country around, although the stream is of quiet romantic beauty, is very barren, offering but little pasture to the emigrants' teams. June the seventeenth. This morning we started for the ferry, twenty-seven miles above Big Deer Creek. We arrived at the river about noon and got across again three or four o'clock in the afternoon, where we left the other side for the bluffs and encamped about four miles onwards on the road from the Platte. The ferry at this place is carried on with flat boats which are fastened to ropes spread across the river. The current carries them from one shore to the other. The following day we started very early in the morning, ascended Rattlesnake Hills, very rocky, and pursued our journey this day through an extremely barren section of country, the soil being mainly sand without any good water and grass. At Willow Springs twenty-six miles above the Platte ferry we arrived towards evening and put up for the night. Not having any grass at all we started very early next morning intending to stop wherever any pasture could be found. Meeting the object of our wishes, we grazed the cattle for several hours. Ponds with alkali water being about, several of our cattle got to drink, and shortly after our start, several got to be very sick, the alkali beginning to operate. We gave some of them fat bacon and some vinegar to neutralize the alkali, which had the best wished effects. The country passed over to-day is very sandy and dry, offering nothing hardly to the passing emigrants. The hills which range along this part are called Blue Hills, probably from the growth of pines with which they are planted.