University of Virginia Library

[Lewis:]

Monday May 6th. 1805.

THE morning being fair and pleasant and wind favourable
we set sale at an early hour, and proceeded on
very well the greater part of the day; the country
still continues level fertile and beautifull, the bottoms wide and
well timbered comparitively speaking with other parts of the
river; no appearance of birnt hills pumice stone or coal,
the salts of tartar or vegitable salts continues to appear on the
river banks, sand bars and in many parts of the plains most
generally in the little revines at the base of the low hills.
passed three streames today which discharged themselves on
the Lard. side; the first of these we call little dry creek it contained
some water in standing pools but discharged none, the
2ed. 50 yards wide no Water, we called it Big dry Creek, the
3rd. is [the] bed of a conspicuous river 200 yards wide which
we called little dry river; the banks of these streams are low
and bottoms wide with but little timber, their beds are almost
entirely formed of a fine brown sand intermixed with a small
proportion of little pebbles, which were either transparent,
white, green, red, yellow or brown. these streams appeared
to continue their width without diminution as far as we could
perceive them, which with rispect to the river, was many miles,

they had recenly discharged their waters. from the appearance
of these streams, and the country through which they
passed, we concluded that they had their sou[r]ces in level
low dry plains, which probably is the character of the country
for a great distance west of this, or to the vicinity of the black
hills, that the country being low on the same leve[1] nearly
and in the same parallel of latitude, that the rains in the spring
of the year suddonly melts the snow at the same time and
causes for a few days a vast quantity of water which finds it's
way to the Missouri through those channels; by reference to
the diary of the weather &c it will be percieved that there is
scarcely any rain during the summer Autumn and winter in
this open country distant from the mountains. Fields still
continues unwell. saw a brown bear swim the river above us,
he disappeared before we can get in reach of him; I find that
the curiossity of our party is pretty well satisfyed with rispect
to this anamal, the formidable appearance of the male bear
killed on the 5th. added to the difficulty with which they die
when even shot through the vital parts, has staggered the
resolution [of] several of them, others however seem keen
for action with the bear; I expect these gentlemen will give
us some amusement sho[r]tly as they [the bears—Ed.] soon
begin now to coppolate [copulate]. saw a great quantity of
game of every species common here. Capt Clark walked on
shore and killed two Elk, they were not in very good order,
we therefore took a part of the meat only; it is now only
amusement for Capt. C. and myself to kill as much meat as the
party can consum; I hope it may continue thus through our
whole rout, but this I do not much expect. two beaver were
taken in traps this mo[r]ning and one since shot by one of
the party. saw numbers of these anamals peeping at us as
we passed out of their wholes which they form of a cilindric
shape, by burrowing in the face of the abbrupt banks of the
river.

Courses and distances May 6th. 1805.

                         

		miles
S. 30°. W.	to a Stard. point opposite a low bluf, just above which little dry creek falls in on Lard.	1 1/2
N. 45°. W.	to a point of high timber in a bend on Stard. side at the mouth of Lackwater creek 25 yds. wide.	1 1/2
N. 40°. W.	to a point of high timber on Stard. side.	3.
S. 55°. W.	to a point of woodland on the Lard. side	3.
S. 70°. W.	to a point of woodland Stard. side, passing Big dry Creek at 1/2 M. on Lard.	2 1/2
S. 55°. W.	to a point of woodland on the Lard. the river making a deep bend to N.W.	2
S. 50°. W.	to a point of woodland Stard. side opposite a low bluff on Lard. side	1 1/4
S. 60°. W.	to the entrance of a river 200 Yds. wide on Lard. side in a bend, this we called little dry river it having no water	3/4
North	to an object in center of a Stard. bend, a large sand Island on Lard. side	2 1/2
S. 40°. W.	to a willow point on the Stard. side opposite to a bluff on the Lard. side	4
S. 80°. W.	to a clump of high trees on the Stard. side passing a point on Lard. at 2 M. on which we encamped for the night	3
	Miles.	25.

May 6th. 1805. Point of observation N°. 10.

On the Stard. side, at the extremity of the 3rd. course of this day observed

       

	h m s
Equal altitudes of ☉ with Sextant. A. M.	8.59.57	lost by	Altd. by sext.
	9. 1.35	Clouds	71° 16′ 15″
	". 3.15

At noon the sun being obscured by clouds I was unable to observe his
Altitude; it continued cloudy the ballance of the day and prevented all
further observation.