[Lewis:]
Wednesday February 5th. 1806.
Late this evening one of the hunters fired his gun over the
swamp of the Netul opposite to the fort and hooped. I sent
sergt. Gass and a party of men over; the tide being in, they
took advantage of a little creek which makes up in that direction
nearly to the highlands, and in their way fortunately
recovered our Indian Canoe, so long lost and much lamented.
The Hunter proved to be Reubin Fields, who reported that
he had killed six Elk on the East side of the Netul a little
above us; and that yesterday he had heard Shannon and
Labuishe fire six or seven shots after he had seperated from
them and supposed that they had also killed several other
Elk. Filds brought with him a phesant which differed but
little from those common to the Atlantic States; it's brown is
reather brighter and more of a redish tint. it has eighteen
feathers in the tale of about six inches in length. this bird is
also booted as low as the toes. the two tufts of long black
feathers on each side of the neck most conspicuous in the male
of those of the Atlantic states is also observable in every particular
with this. Fir N°. 2 is next in dignity in point of size.[20]
it
is much the most common species, it may be sa[i]d to constitute
at least one half of the timber in this neighbourhood.
it appears to be of the spruse kind. it rises to the hight of
160 to 180 feet very commonly and is from 4 to 6 feet in
diameter, very streight round and regularly tapering. the
bark is thin of a dark colour, and much divided with small
longitudinal intersticies; that of the boughs and young trees
is somewhat smoth but not so much so as the balsom fir nor
that of the white pine of our country. the wood is white
throughout and reather soft but very tough, and difficult to
rive. The trunk of this tree is a simple branching diffused
stem and not proliferous as the pines & firs usially are but like
most other trees it puts forth buds from the sides of the small
boughs as well as their extremities. the stem usually terminates
in a very slender pointed top like the cedar. The
leaves are petiolate, the footstalk small short and oppressed;
acerose reather more than half a line in width and very unequal
in length, the greatest length being little more than half an
inch, while others intermixed on every part of the bough are
not more than a 1/4 in length. flat with a small longitudinal
channel in the upper disk which is of a deep green and glossey,
while the u[n]der disk is of a whiteish green only; two ranked,
obtusely pointed, soft and flexable. this tree affords but little
rosin. the cone is remarkably small not larger than the end
of a man's thumb soft, flexable and of an ovate form, produced
at the ends of the small twigs.
