incessantly, rising to the height of
two or three feet. In another place, there is an aperture in the earth,
from which rushes a column of steam that forms a perpetual cloud. The
ground for some distance around sounds hollow, and startles the solitary
trapper, as he hears the tramp of his horse giving the sound of a
muffled drum. He pictures to himself a mysterious gulf below, a place of
hidden fires, and gazes round him with awe and uneasiness.

The most noted curiosity, however, of this singular region, is the Beer
Spring, of which trappers give wonderful accounts. They are said to turn
aside from their route through the country to drink of its waters, with
as much eagerness as the Arab seeks some famous well of the desert.
Captain Bonneville describes it as having the taste of beer. His men
drank it with avidity, and in copious draughts. It did not appear to him
to possess any medicinal properties, or to produce any peculiar effects.
The Indians, however, refuse to taste it, and endeavor to persuade the
white men from doing so.

We have heard this also called the Soda Spring, and described as
containing iron and sulphur. It probably possesses some of the
properties of the Ballston water.

The time had now arrived for Captain Bonneville to go in quest of the
party of free trappers, detached in the beginning of July, under the
command of Mr. Hodgkiss, to trap upon the head waters of Salmon River.
His intention was to unite them with the party with which he was at
present travelling, that all might go into quarters together for the
winter. Accordingly, on the 11th of November, he took a temporary leave
of his band, appointing a rendezvous on Snake River, and, accompanied by
three men, set out upon his journey. His route lay across the plain
of the Portneuf, a tributary stream of Snake River, called after an
unfortunate Canadian trapper murdered by the Indians. The whole country
through which he passed bore evidence of volcanic convulsions and
conflagrations in the olden time. Great masses of lava lay scattered
about in every direction; the crags and cliffs had apparently been under
the action of fire; the rocks in some places seemed to have been in
a state of fusion; the plain was rent and split with deep chasms and
gullies, some of which were partly filled with lava.

They had not proceeded far, however, before they saw a party of
horsemen, galloping full tilt toward them. They instantly turned, and
made full spee