From Orion:

In the night we sailed by a most notable curiosity, and one we had been hearing a good deal about for a day or two, and were suffering to see. This was what might be called a natural ice-house. It was August, now, and sweltering weather in the daytime, yet at one of the stations the men could scape the soil on the hill-side under the lee of a range of boulders, and at a depth of six inches cut out pure blocks of ice—hard, compactly frozen, and clear as crystal! (Roughing It)

From Roughing It:

From Orion: Friday, Aug. 2.—3 o’clock, A. M., passed over North Platte bridge, 760 miles from St. Joseph. 2 P. M., reached “Sweet water” creek, “Independence Rock,” the “Devil’s Gap,” the “Cold Spring,” an ice water spring, issuing near one of the Stations,. Now, or at any time of the year, the men at this Station by scraping off the soil, sometimes only to the depth of six inches, can cut out pretty, clear, square blocks of ice. This “cold spring” is 36 miles from “Independence Rock,” and 847 miles from St. Joseph.

After dinner we climbed to the yellow pines. This afternoon passed, near La Pierelle station, the little canon in which the Express rider was last night when a bullet from Indians on the side of the road passed through his coat. About 2½ hours before the station keeper at La Parelle had fired four times at one Indian. At noon we passed a Mormon train 33 wagons long. They were nooning.

Thursday, Aug. 1. Found ourselves this morning in the “Black Hills,” with “Laramie Peak,” looming up in large proportions. This peak is 60 miles from Fort Laramie, which we passed in the night. We took breakfast at “Horseshoe” station, forty miles from Fort Laramie, and 676 miles from St. Joseph.  - Clemens

See Burton, To Fort Laramie 14 August   (The City of the Saints)

Horace Greeley:

"I met men at every turn who owned from one thousand to thirty thousand “feet” in undeveloped silver mines, every single foot of which they believed would shortly be worth from fifty to a thousand dollars—and as often as any other way they were men who had not twenty-five dollars in the world.

"I had already learned how hard and long and dismal a task it is to burrow down into the bowels of the earth and get out the coveted ore; and now I learned that the burrowing was only half the work; and that to get the silver out of the ore was the dreary and laborious other half of it. We had to turn out at six in the morning and keep at it till dark.

"We put our names to it and tried to feel that our fortunes were made. But when we talked the matter all over with Mr. Ballou, we felt depressed and dubious.