Carson City, Nevada. August 12 / [18]77.
Dearest Wife I wrote last from Salt Lake City on the 8th, from whence Dr Gray1 and I took a botanical excursion into the Wahsatch M[ountain]s, a high and very rugged range E[ast] of Salt Lake City. We were two days away, went over a Pass about 12000ft high, saw the famous "Emma Mine", and got a great number of most interesting plants, many connecting the Flora of Colorado and Utah with that of California. We left Salt Lake City for Ogden on the 9th, and then Gen[eral] and Mrs Strachey*2 left us for England, to our great regret. They were to take the train Eastward by Cheyenne and Omaha to Chicago, without stopping, then on to Niagara and so down the Hudson to New York, whence they will embark on the 22nd for England. We took the train in the opposite, Westerly direction, at 7 p.m. on the 9th, and travelling all night and next day over the desert salt region, very hot and fatiguing, arrived at midnight of the 10th at Reno whence a rail runs 30 South to Carson City. This dry, treeless and waterless region is terribly hot, but water is everywhere near the surface and the brilliant green and luxuriant, irrigated crops near the railway stations formed a really marvellous contrast to the surrounding sterility. Carson City is also in the desert region and is the Capital of Nevada State; it is 20 miles from Virginia City where Dr Gray and the Haydens*3 and I went today. -- A most wonderful place, 6000ft

up amongst the most horrid, barren, rocky M[ountain]s you ever beheld. Yet here are the richest gold and silver mines ever discovered. They were discovered but a few years ago, and in some ten years several large towns, with grand Hotels, Banks, &c., shot up around them. They have already yielded 76,000,000 dollars of pure gold and silver, and in one day one mine turned out 360,000 dollars' worth. The works for crushing the quartz, washing, amalgamating with mercury, reducing and assaying, are on the most perfect principles, and the gigantic machinery, steam engines &c. &c. &c. are amongst the finest in the world. The owners of these mines are millionaires and their wealth is increasing every minute and will till the lode is exhausted. The miners work at upwards of 1000ft depth in a steamy atmosphere of 120 degrees. They get 16/- a day. The climate is horrid, terribly hot by day, it was 93 in the shade at 11 a.m., and very cold in winter. The gentlemen who took us over the works gave us a capital luncheon in the Hotel which is a perfect palace. Only gold goes here and small silver, and nothing smaller than a 10 cent piece (nearly 6d) is taken, which is very hard on the poor, though in fact there are no poor. Tens of thousands have been ruined hunting for lodes all about here, finding perhaps a little superficial ore and then setting up works to be ruined thereby. The steep mountain slopes are riddled by prospectors for miles in every direction.

Tomorrow we leave early for Silver City and so across the Mountains to Yosemite and Calaveras Groves and so to San Francisco where we cannot arrive till 10 days, and where I do so long to be and get letters from you. I did so long to go home with the Stracheys2, but my work will end with the Forest region of the Pacific coast. I have a very large collection of plants and a good general idea of the Flora of the whole continent from East to West. It will be a splendid achievement in Geographical Botany, but a very laborious one. I am so sick of railway cars and perpetual packing of traps, drying plants, writing notes and seeing endless people and things. Ever dearest Wife| Your affectionate J.D.Hooker. I cannot tell you how I long to hear from you.