FOOT.]

Following the trail of the advance party, we traveled along the lake
beach for about six miles, passing a number of small hot sulphur springs
and lukewarm sulphur ponds, and three hot steam jets surrounded by
sulphur incrustations. After six miles, we left the beach, and traveled
on the plateau overlooking the lake. This plateau was covered with a
luxuriant growth of standing pine and a great deal of fallen timber,
through which at times considerable difficulty was experienced in
passing. A little way from the trail is an alkaline spring about six
feet in diameter. We came to camp on the shore of the lake, after having
marched fifteen miles in a southerly direction. We have a most beautiful
view of the lake from our camp. Yesterday it lay before us calm and
unruffled, save by the waves which gently broke upon the shore. To-day
the winds lash it into a raging sea, covering its surface with foam,
while the sparkling sand along the shore seems to form for it a jeweled
setting, and the long promontories stretching out into it, with their
dense covering of pines, lend a charming feature to the scene. Water
never seemed so beautiful before. Waves four feet high are rolling in,
and there appear to be six or seven large islands; but we cannot be
certain about this number until we reach the south shore. From this
point we cannot tell whether the wooded hills before us are islands or
promontories. On the shore are to be found large numbers of carnelians
or crystallized quartz, agates, specimens of petrified wood, and lava
pebbles or globules. We have found also many curious objects of slate
formation, resembling hollowed-out cups, discs, and two well formed
resemblances of a leg and foot, and many other curious objects which
Nature in her most capricious mood has scattered over this watery
solitude. All these seem to be the joint production of fire and water;
the fire forming and baking them, and the water polishing them. We