We left our last night's camp where we suffered considerably by the cold and started to ascend the first of the mountains of the Nevada. The ascent is gradual for several miles till the road comes to red rock where it takes a sudden ascent for about one-half mile being very steep and rocky and undoubtedly constitutes with the yesterday's passed Canyon the greater part of the elephant which will be finished tomorrow by the steepest and highest ascent of the Sierra Nevada. Up this mountain we doubled teams and our wagons being light we arrived safely at the summit about seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. Grass being scarce here we descended about four miles on the other side of the mountain into a valley where we found some good feed along the lake shore. August twentieth. Started for the ascent of the last and highest mountain of the Sierra Nevada, taking first over a mountain of five hundred to one thousand feet in height which brought us to the foot of the last mountain, we began our ascent, but though it was very stony and high, we had less difficulty in passing over it than the one we ascended the day before. I myself arrived at the summit about ten o'clock where I disposed of our horse which had caused me a good deal of trouble. This done I took a view of the country around me. I always fancied to myself that the beauties of the mountainous countries were grand and sublime but never could I fully imagine such a vast and chaotic beautiful scene as I found here. The whole mountains are made up of metamorphic rocks, thrown here by volcanic causes. The mountains which extend around you, standing at the summit to the edge of the horizon are interrupted by alpine valleys filled with beautiful meadows and lakes of cold mountain water which help to make the grand scene of the mountains lovely and rural to the observer. We passed over the summit and drove on this day over mountain ridges and encamped at night at about the same level as we traveled over in the afternoon, finding some grass and water on the mountain side. The following day took up the fork of the road, the one to the right taking to Hangtown, the left hand one to Volcano. The distance from the fork to the latter place is about thirty-five miles, very hilly and extremely dusty, grass and water scarce—from ten to twenty miles apart in the valleys. We arrived at Volcano August twenty-third and sold our stock the next day for the sum of three hundred dollars, making my share with our previous receipt for horse and one yoke of cattle, eighty-seven dollars and subtracting this from the whole of my expense leaves me ninety dollars debit to the journey. At Volcano is the first mining district met this side the Nevada and provisions being tolerable cheap and some of the digging middling favourable some five of us concluded to stay here a while and try our luck.