134 S. H. TAYLOR
should be supplied with it. Few men are supplied with the means of using such remedies, and are obliged to resort to shoeing with leather, fastening with eight-ounce tacks a poor expedient but much better than nothing. It is remarkable that, to within about seventy-five miles of Ft. Laramie, the evil increased, and then the feet of the cattle begin to harden, and some are fitted to all the conditions of the road that is, supposing due diligence to be used in avoiding alkaline grounds. The Platte, through almost its entire course below here, at least, flows along the southern wall of its valley, and on that side there is no flat and of course no alkali. On this, the north side, the extent of surface occupied by it, is diminished by the increase of alluvial and detrital deposits. Two hundred miles below here, almost the entire surface is impregnated with alkali, while here perhaps two-thirds of it is covered by alluvion carried on by the stream, and by sand and clay washed down from the hills. The alkali is thus concealed otherwise it would render this route entirely impassable and uninhabitable, high up the stream, for even here, where it is found, the water is so strong as to be fatal and the earth covered with a crust of alkaline salts, resembling the purest saleratus.
I wish to give your readers the best general idea I can of this valley and its peculiarities, but I will wait for a better opportunity than I shall have on the road. When we get through, if in God's providence that event occurs, I shall try to give you a view of this country and of all through which we may pass. It is enough that the last 200 miles of our course has been, so far as wood is concerned, over a total, utter deso- lation. On this side the river, there is not a thing growing as high as a man's knees. Even this great stream sweeps along without a shadow cast upon its waters without a tree or bush to indicate its course. Even the "LINE TREE" has been cut down and burned. When we stood by its stump, on ground on which so many thousands have enjoyed its shade, we felt that the man who could destroy it was fit only for murder and
