a southerly direction; its source is 150 miles farther up. From the Red Butte we crossed over a high ridge to the Sweetwater,"' or Riviere-de-1'Eau-douce, so called from the great purity of its waters. The most remarkable spot upon this river is the famous Independence Rock;" it is the first massive rock of that famous mountain chain which divides North America, and which travelers call the back bone of the universe. It is composed of granite hi situ of a prodigious thickness, and covers several miles of ground; it is entirely exposed from top to bottom. It is the great register of the desert; the names of all the travelers who have passed by are there to be read, written in coarse characters; mine figures among them, as that of the first priest to reach this remote spot.
For several days now we had on our right a chain of those naked rocks, so properly called Rocky Mountains. They are nothing but rocks heaped upon rocks; you think
18 The name of this stream dates from the period of Ashley's expeditions. A fitting explanation of its origin might easily be given even in the absence of any historic data. The water in the adjacent country for many miles around is so impregnated with alkaline salts as to be unfit to drink. The thirsty traveler, coming suddenly upon this stream of pure mountain water, would very naturally by contrast call it the Sweetwater. But the French name, as first given, was not Eau Douce, but Eau Sucri, sugared water, and arose, according to Ferris, from the fact that in the very early years, certainly before 1830, a pack mule laden with sugar was lost in the stream.
17 Independence Rock was a famous landmark. It is an immense oblong block of oval, but irregular shape, along the southern base of which lay the river and along the northern base the old Trail. It covers an area of over twenty-seven acres and its highest point is 155 feet above the level of the river. It is wholly isolated and looks as if it had been dropped there in the midst of the plain. The site of the rock became from the first a great camping place, and the custom early arose of inscribing on it the names of travelers who passed it. It was named before 1830 from the circumstance of a party of American trappers having celebrated the Fourth of July at its base.
The granite of the rock is not durable, and though a multitude of names appear upon it, few, if any, dating back more than twenty-five or thirty years are now legible (1903).