The triangular disposition of the mountain ranges as they lay before us, at this time outlined by their snow-capped summits, is not clearly shown upon the maps, but of such a form was the impression made upon our eyes. Away down below us and between the sides of that great triangle, thus walled in by mountains, lay the broad basin into which converge the upper tributaries of Green River, a stream which in turn breaking through the Uinta Range rushes southward to join the Colorado, and thence onward through its titanic canyons to the Gulf of California. And now, while the western mountains were casting their far-reaching shadows across this broad basin beneath us, the cold, snow-mantled sides of the Wind River Range were dazzling and glittering in the level beams of the setting sun. From our point of view and at that time they were seen at their best. It was not like an Alpine scene, diversified by mountain lakes, waterfalls, and picturesque chalets, but it had a suggestion of wonderful breadth and vastness and afforded a range of vision rarely to be seen, except when one looks upward to the stars; but the whole of that landscape of mountains, and the deep, broad desert which they enveloped, was bleak and desolate, with never sign of animal life nor trace of vegetation visible. Though to us it was a new country, everything appeared to be old, as if through countless ages it had remained unchanged. With this impression stamped upon our minds, many members of our party wrapped their blankets round them and slept under the open sky. It happened on that night, one or two nights after the full of the moon, to be my duty to stand guard until midnight. Hence it fell to my lot to watch a dazzling, winter-like sunset in midsummer, which, because of the prevailing whiteness, imparted hardly a tint as the daylight faded, except what was seen in the star-studded azure above. After a brief period of declining light there was a wondrous change when the clear, cold, and pearly moonlight broke over the eastern highlands and lighted up the vast, white, frosty landscape, for the moon was now in her glory and, "Chaste as the icicle That's curdled by the frost from purest snow," and thus in harmony with the earth upon which she shone, for the distant landscape was spotless white, and the vast stretches of mountain ranges which, along many hundreds of miles, pinnacled the distant horizon with towers and minarets, were covered with crystals of frost and snow.