During the wet season, the water of the lake overflows its banks, and the banks of the river are also overflowed, while the water standing upon the surface of the ground is strongly impregnated with potash, not only near the sink, but far up the stream, nearly to its source, the same cause existing, though only in occasional spots is it exhibited to the same degree as about the lake. It is not improbable that some immense coal formation might have been consumed here in some remote past age, though that is a matter for more scientific examination than becomes this work. But, to leave speculation; the occupants of the station, whilom trappers in the mountains, furnished barley for our animals, and we might have purchased coffee, or a rusty gun, or bad whiskey, but little else, for their regular supplies for the emigrants who were soon expected to arrive, had not yet come in. The parties bound east had passed, and the Mormons, with their herds of cattle for the California markets, had been met beyond the desert. A party of Pah Utah or Piete Indians, a tribe of Diggers, were hanging about the encampment, and possibly had caused the stampede of the Mormon oxen, which one of their herdsmen had reported to us as occurring here. The traders on the plains are charged with conniving at such expeditions of the Indians, and of sharing with them the plunder. These traders may not have been privy to any thing of the kind, but certain it is they always stood ready to purchase the worn out stock of the overland emigrants, much of which is worthless to cross the desert, after the prior fifteen hundred miles of travel. This is made a lucrative business, as will be readily imagined, when the number of animals driven over is taken into consideration, which has amounted to a hundred thousand annually, by this route, during several of the years since the quest for gold. The traders said they had twenty-five hundred horses and as many oxen, in charge of herdsmen in a mountain valley. Shrewd men they were, one of them with an eye we would not warrant to look out from a kindly soul. Miserable wretches were these Humboldt Diggers, with scarcely a trace of humanity in their composition, for they have not improved since Carson first met them, many years ago. The old chief was delighted with a lump of sugar, which one of our party gave him. He wore a long coat made of rabbit skins, warm and durable, strips of the skin with the hair out being wound around a deerskin thong, and these rolls woven into a garment, but the rest of the party were nearly naked.