aspen, called "quaking asp" by the
wood-choppers. It seems to be quite abundant on many of the eastern
mountains of the basin, and forms a marked feature of their upper
forests.

Wading up the curves of the summit was rather toilsome, for the snow,
which was softened by the blazing sun, was from ten to twenty feet deep,
but the view was one of the most impressively sublime I ever beheld.
Snowy, ice-sculptured ranges bounded the horizon all around, while the
great lake, eighty miles long and fifty miles wide, lay fully revealed
beneath a lily sky. The shorelines, marked by a ribbon of white sand,
were seen sweeping around many a bay and promontory in elegant curves,
and picturesque islands rising to mountain heights, and some of them
capped with pearly cumuli. And the wide prairie of water glowing in the
gold and purple of evening presented all the colors that tint the lips
of shells and the petals of lilies--the most beautiful lake this side
of the Rocky Mountains. Utah Lake, lying thirty-five miles to the
south, was in full sight also, and the river Jordan, which links the two
together, may be traced in silvery gleams throughout its whole course.

Descending the mountain, I followed the windings of the main central
glen on the north, gathering specimens of the cones and sprays of the
evergreens, and most of the other new plants I had met; but the lilies
formed the crowning glory of my bouquet--the grandest I had carried in
many a day. I reached the hotel on the lake about dusk with all my fresh
riches, and my first mountain ramble in Utah was accomplished. On my way
back to the city, the next day, I met a grave old Mormon with whom I had
previously held some Latter-Day discussions. I shook my big handful of
lilies in his face and shouted, "Here are the true saints, ancient
and Latter-Day, enduring forever!" After he had recovered from his
astonishment he said, "They are nice."

The other liliaceous plants I have met in Utah are two species of
zigadenas, Fritillaria atropurpurea, Calochortus Nuttallii, and three
or four handsome alliums. One of these lilies, the calochortus, several
species of which are well known in California as the "Mariposa tulips,"
has received great consideration at the hands of the Mormons, for to it
hundreds of them owe their lives. During the famine years between
1853 and 1858, great destitution prevailed, especially in the southern
settlements, on account of drouth and grasshoppers, and thro