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Show .Lewis anct Cla·rkc' s Expedit-ion t·ics. Our encampment was at thirteen miles distance ou an island to the north, opposite some hills higher than usual, and almost one hundred and sixty ot• one hundred and eighty feet. ~6th. At one mile we passed at the end of a small island, Blue Water creek, which is about thirty yards wide at its entrance from the south.* Here the Missouri is confined within a narrow bed, and the cut•rent still more so by counter currents or whirls on one side and a high bank OD the other. 'Ve passed a small island and a sandbar, where our tow rope broke twice, and we rowed round with great exertions. We saw a number of pal'l'O(juets, and killed some deer; after nine and three quarter miles we encamped at the upper point of the mouth of the river Kanzas: bert we remained two days, during which we made the necessary observations, rc<·nJited the party, and repaired the boat. The river Ka.nzas takes its rise in the }Jlains between the Arkansaw and Platte rivers, ami pursues a course generally cast till its junction with the Missouri which is in latitude ;:;8° 31' 13''; here it is tht•ce humh·ed and forty and a quar· ter yards wide, though it is wider a short distance above the mouth. 'l'hc Missouri itself is about five hundred yards ia width; the point of union is low and subject to inundations for two hundred and fifty yards, it then rises a little abon high water mark, and continues so as far back as the hills. On the south of the Kanzas the hills or highlands come within one mile and a half of the river; on the north of the 1\'Iissouri they do not appt•oach neat·er than several miles; out on all sides the count•·y is fine. The compar·ative specific gravities of the two rivers is, for the Missouri seventy· eight, the Kanzas seventy-two degrees; the waters of the latr ter have a very disagreeable taste; the former has risen dur· ing yesterday and to day about two feet. On the banks of the Kanzas reside the Indians of the same name, consistin; oftwovillages, one at about twenty, the other forty leagues • A few miles up the Blue Water Creek are quarries of pla8ter of paris, since worked and brought down to St. Louis. Up the Missouri. :&om its mouth, and amounting to about three hundred men. They once lived twenty-four leagues higher than the Kan zas, on the south bank of the Missouri, and were then more numet•ous, but they ltave been reduced and banished by the Sanks and Aya.uways, who being better supplied with arms have an advantage over· the Kanzas, though the latte1· ar"' BOt less fierce 01' warlike than themselves. rfhis nation ic· ROW hunting in the plains fot· the buffaloe which our hunt Etrs have seen for the iirst time. On the 29th, we set out late in the afternoon, and It~ ving passed a sandbar. nea1~ which the boat was almost lost, and a large island on the noPth, we encamped at seven and a quarter miles on the same side in the ]ow land!'. where C he rushes are so thick that it is troul>lcsomc to walk through them. Ea•·Jy the nc.•xt mor·ning, 30th, we reached, at :ftvc miles distan~ e, the mouth of a river coming in ft•om thenorth, aml called by the French, Petite Riviere Platte, or Little Shallow river; it is about sixty yards wide at it'> :mouth. A few of the party who ascended informed us, tha1 the lands on both sides are good, and that there are several falls well calculated for mills; the wind was from the soutlt west, and the weather oppressively warm, the thermometet· standing at 96° above 0 at three o'clock P . .l\1. One mile beyond this is a small creek on the south, at five miles from which we encamped on the same side, Oilposite the lowct• point of an island called Diamond island. 'l'he land on the north between the Little Shallow river, and the Missouri is not good and subject to overflow-on the south it is highe1· and better timbered. July 1st. We pt•oceeded along the north side of Diamond island, where a small creek called Biscuit m•eek empties it. self. One and a half miles above the island is a Ja1·ge sandhal' in the middle of the river, beyond which we stopped to refresh the men, wbo sutfet•ed very much from the heat. Here we obset•vetl great quantities of gr·apes atulr·aspberries. :Between one and tw8 miles further are tbree islands |
