Tuesday April 9th.
Set out as early as it was possible to
see this morning and
proceed about five miles where we halted and took
beakfas
the Indian man who had promised us to accompany us as far
as
the Snake Indians, now informed us of his intention to relinquish
the journey, and accordingly returned
to his village.
we saw a great number of brant passing up the river, some
of them were white, except the large
feathers in the first and
second joint of the wing which are black. there
is no other
difference between them and the common gray brant but that
of their colour—their note and habits are the same, and they
are freequently seen to associate together. I have not yet
positively determined whether they are the same, or a different
species. Capt Clark walked on shore to-day
[15]
and informed
me on his return, that passing through the prarie he had seen
an
anamal that precisely resembled the burrowing squrril, accept
in point of size, it being only about one
third as large
as the squirrel, and that it also burrows. I have observed
in
many parts of the plains and praries, the work of an anamal
of
which I could never obtain a view. their work resembles
that of the
salamander common to the sand hills of the States
of South Carolina and
Georgia, and like that anamal also it
never appears above the ground. the
little hillocks which
are thrown up by these anamals have much the
appearance
of ten or twelve pounds of loose earth poared out of a vessel
on the surface of the plain. in the state they leave them you
can
discover no whole through which they throw out this
earth; but by removing
the loose earth gently you may discover
that
the soil has been broken in a circle manner for
about an inch and a half
in diameter; where it appears looser
than the adjacent surface, and is
certainly the place through
which the earth has been thrown out, tho' the
operation is
performed without leaving any visible aperture. the Bluffs
of the river which we passed today were upwards of a hundred
feet high, formed of a mixture of yellow
clay and sand—
many horizontal stratas of carbonated wood, having
every appearance
of pitcoal at a distance;
were seen in the the face of
these bluffs. these stratas are of unequal
thicknesses from 1 to
5 feet, and appear at different elivations above the
water some
of them as much as eighty feet.
[16]
the hills of the
river are very
broken, and many of them have the apearance of having been
on fire at some former period.
considerable quantities of
pumice stone and lava appear in many parts of
these hills
where they are broken and washed Down by the rain and
melting snow. when we halted for dinner the squaw busied
herself in
serching for the wild artichokes which the mice
[17]
collect and
deposit in large hoards. this operation she performed
by penetrating the earth with a sharp
stick about some
small collections of drift wood. her labour soon proved
successful,
and she procured a good
quantity of these roots. the
flavor of this root resembles that of the
Jerusalem Artichoke,
and the stalk of the weed which produces it is also
similar,
tho' both the root and stalk are much smaller than the Jerusalem
Artichoke. the root is white and of an
ovate form,
from one to three inches in length and usually about the size
of a man's finger. one stalk produces from two to four, and
somitimes six of these roots.
at the distance of 6 miles passed a
large wintering or hunting
camp of the
Minetares on the Stard side. these lodges
about thirty
in number are built of earth and timber in their
usual stile. 2 1/4 miles
higher we passed the entrance of Miry
Creek, which discharges itself on
the Stard side. this creek is
but small,—takes
it's rise in some small lakes near the Mouse
river and passes in it's
course to the Missouri, through beatifull,
level, and fertile plains, intirely destitute of timber.
Three miles
above the mouth of this creek we passed a hunting
camp of Minetares who had prepared a park and were
wating the return
of the Antelope; which usually pass the
Missouri at this season of the
year from the Black hills on
the South side, to the open plains on the
north side of the
river; in like manner the Antelope repasses the Missouri
from
N. to South in the latter end of Autumn, and winter in the
black hills, where there is considerable bodies of woodland.
we
proceed on 11 1/2 miles further and encamped on the N. side
in a most beatifull high extensive open
bottom.[18]
The courses and distances of this day are as
follow
|
|
miles |
| N.
20° W. |
to a Stard point opposte to a
bluff |
1 |
| N. |
to a Stard point d° d°
d° |
1/2 |
| N. 80. E. |
to a
sand point on Lard side |
1
1/2 |
| N. |
to a Lard
point |
1/2 |
| N. 18. W. |
to a
handsome elivated plain on Lard Sd |
1 |
| N. 22.
E. |
to a point of willows on Lard side opposit}
to a wintering camp of the Minetares |
1
1/2 |
| N. 20. W. |
to the mouth of Miry creek
Stard side, passing a small
run and a hill called
snake den |
2 1/4 |
| W. |
to a
point on Lard
side |
1 |
| S. 75 W. |
to a point
on Stard opposite to a camp of Minetares, and
lower
po.t of a high
bluff |
4 |
| N. 65. W. |
to the
upper point point of woo[d]land on Std. sd. |
3 |
| S. 45.
W. |
to a point of timber on the Lard.
side |
2 |
| S. 30. W. |
to a sand
point on the Stard. side |
1
1/4 |
| S. 78. W. |
to a point of woodland on
the Lard
side |
4 |
|
|
23
1/2 |
