University of Virginia Library

Saturday May 11th. 1805.

Set out this morning at an early hour, the courant strong;
and river very crooked; the banks are falling in very fast; I
sometimes wonder that some of our canoes or perogues are
not swallowed up by means of these immence masses of earth
which are eternally precipitating themselves into the river; we
have had many hairbreadth escapes from them but providence
seems so to have ordered it that we have as yet sustained no
loss in consequence of them. The wind blue very hard the
forepart of last night but abated toward morning; it again
arose in the after part of this day and retarded our progress
very much. the high lands are broken, the hills higher and approach
nearer the river, tho' the soil of both hills and bottoms
appear equally as furtile as below; it consists of a black looking
lome with a moderate portion of sand; the hills and
bluffs to the debth of 20 or thirty feet, seemed to be composed
entirely of this loam; when thrown in the water it
desolves as readily as loaf sugar and effervesses like marle.
great appearance of quarts and mineral salts, the latter appears
both on the hills and bottoms, in the bottoms of the gullies
which make down from the hills it lies incrusting the earth to
the debth of 2 or 3 inches, and may with a fether be swept up
and collected in large quantities, I preserved several specimines
of this salts. the quarts appears most commonly in the faces

of the bluffs. no coal, burnt hills, or pumice stone. saw
today some high hills on the Stard. whose summits were covered
with pine. Capt Clark went on shore and visited them;
he brought with him on his return som of the boughs of this
pine it is of the pitch kind but I think the leaves somewhat
longer than ours in Virginia. Capt C. also in his walk killed
2 Mule deer a beaver and two buffaloe; these last he killed
about 3 miles above where we encamped this evening in the
expectation that we would reach that place, but we were unable
to do so from the adverse winds and other occurrences, and he
came down and joined us about dark. there is a dwarf cedar
growing among the pine on the hills; it rises to the hight [of]
thre[e] sometimes 4 feet, but most generally spreads itself like
a vine along the surface of the earth, which it covers very
closely, puting out roots from the underside of the limbs; the
leaf is finer and more delicate than the common red ceader,
it's fruit and smell are the same with the red ceader. the tops
of these hills which produce the pine and cedar is of a different
soil from that just described; it is a light coloured poor
sterile sandy soil, the base usually a yellow or white clay; it
produces scarcely any grass, some scattering tuffts of sedge
constitutes the greater part of it's grass. About 5. P. M. my
attention was struck by one of the Party runing at a distance
towards us and making signs and hollowing as if in distress,
I ordered the perogues to put too, and waited untill he
arrived; I now found that it was Bratton the man with the
soar hand whom I had permitted to walk on shore, he
arrived so much out of breath that it was several minutes
before he could tell what had happened; at length he informed
me that in the woody bottom on the Lard. side about 1 1/2
[miles] below us he had shot a brown bear which immediately
turned on him and pursued him a considerable distance but he
had wounded it so badly that it could not overtake him; I
immediately turned out with seven of the party in quest of
this monster, we at length found his trale and persued him
about a mile by the blood through very thick brush of rosbushes
and the large leafed willow; we finally found him concealed
in some very thick brush and shot him through the
skull with two balls; we proceeded [to] dress him as soon as
possible, we found him in good order; it was a monstrous
beast, not quite so large as that we killed a few days past but
in all other rispects much the same the hair is remarkably
long fine and rich tho' he appears parshally to have discharged
his winter coat; we now found that Bratton had shot him
through the center of the lungs, notwithstanding which he had
pursued him near half a mile and had returned more than
double that distance and with his tallons had prepared himself
a bed in the earth of about 2 feet deep and five long and was
perfectly alive when we found him which could not have been
less than 2 hours after he received the wound; these bear
being so hard to die reather intimedates us all; I must confess
that I do not like the gentlemen and had reather fight two
Indians than one bear; there is no other chance to conquer
them by a single shot but by shooting them through the
brains, and this becomes difficult in consequence of two large
muscles which cover the sides of the forehead and the sharp
projection of the center of the frontal bone, which is also of a
pretty good thickness. the flece and skin were as much as
two men could possibly carry. by the time we returned the
sun had set and I determined to remain here all night, and
directed the cooks to render the bear's oil and put it in the
kegs which was done. there was about eight gallons of it.

the wild Hysop grows here and in all the country through
which we have passed for many days past; tho' from big Dry
river to this place it has been more abundant than below, and
a smaller variety of it grows on the hills, the leaves of which
differ considerably being more deeply indented near it's extremity.
the buffaloe deer and Elk feed on this herb in the winter
season as they do also on the small willow of the sandbars.
there is another growth that begins now to make it's appearance
in the bottom lands and is becoming extreemly troublesome;
it is a shrub which rises to the hight of from two to
four feet, much branched, the bark of the trunk somewhat
rough hard and of light grey colour; the wood is firm and
stif, the branches beset with a great number of long, sha[r]p,
strong, woody looking thorns; the leaf is about 3/4 or an inch

long, and one 1/8 of an inch wide, it is obtuse, absolutely
entire, veinless fleshy and gibbose; has no perceptable taste or
smell, and no anamal appears to eat it by way of designating
when I mention it hereafter I shall call it the fleshey leafed
thorn.[11]

Courses and distances May 11th. 1805.

                       

South—	to the upper part of some high timber on the Lard. side passing over a sand po[i]nt Lard.	1 1/2
S. 50°. W.	to the upper part of the timber in a bend on Stard. side	1 1/2
South.	to the commencement of a wood on Stard. side, opposite to a Lard. point	3/4
S. 68°. E.	to the upper part of the timber in a bend on Lard. side, passing over a sand-bar from a Stard. point	1 3/4
S. 10°. E.	to the upper part of a sand-bar on the Stard. opposite to a bluff	1 1/2
S. 85°. W.	to some timber in the center of a bend on Stard. side, passing a sand point on Lard. at 3/4	2.
S. 10°. E.	to a point of woodland on the Lard. side.	1.
S. 40°. E.	to the point of a sand-bar on Stard. oposite to a low bluf.	2 1/2
S. 80°. W.	to a point of woodland on the Lard. side, passing a point of woodland on Std. side at 1/2 a mile, a deep bend to the N.W.	1 1/4
S. 75°. W.	to a high bluff point in a bend on Stard. (S.W. from hence distant 3 Miles is a ridge of high lands covered with pine which is the first we have yet seen on the Missouri)	1.
S. 25°. E.	to the point of a sand-bar on the Stard. 1/2 below which we encamped on the Lard.	2 1/4
	Miles	17.

Point of Observation No. 16.

On the Lard. shore about the middle of the 4th. course of this day
observed equal altitudes of ☉ with Sext.

     

A. M.	8. 15. 33—	P. M. lost in con-	Altd. by
	″. 17. 7.5	sequence of the	Sextant
	″. 18. 43	intervention of clouds	58°. 41′. 30″.

Point of Observation No. 17.

On the Lard. shore at the middle of the 8th. course
of this day, observed Meridian altd. of ☉.

L. L. with Octant by the back observation 64°. 51′.

Latitude deduced from this observtn. [blank space in MS.]