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Show [ 174 ] Silica Vegetable matter - Moisture and Joss 118 1.50 .20 4.61 100.00 At 11 o'clock, when the temperature of the air was 73°, that of the water in this was 60.5°; and that of the npper spring, which issued from the flat rock, more exposed to the sun, was 69°. At sunset, when the temperature of the air was 66°, that of the lower springs wa · 58°, and that of the upper 61°. July 19.-A beautiful and clear morning, with a slight breeze frotn the northwest; the ten1perature of air at sunrise being 57.5°. At thi time the temperature of the lower spring wns 57.8°, and that of the upper 54.3°. The trees in the neighborhood were birch, willow, pine, and an oak resembling quercus alba. In the hrnbbery aloug the river are curraul bu hes (rihes,) of which the fruit has a singular piney flavor; alld on the nwuntai~ sid?, in a r?d gravelly soil., is a remarlw.ble coniferous tree, (perhaps an alnes,) havmg the leaves smo-ulary long, broad, and scattered, with bn hes of spi1·cea m·iCl'jolia. By our observations, this place is 6,350 feet above the sea, in latitude 38° 52' 10", and longitude 105° 22' 45". Resuming our journey on this morning, we descended the river, in order to reach the mouth of the eastern fork, which I proposed to ascend. The left bank of the river here is very much broken. There is a handsome little bottom on the_ right, and both bauks arc exceedingly picturesquestrata of red rock, m nearly pcrpeudicular walls, crossino- the valley from nol'th to south. About three miles below the SJHinas on the ri1Yl1t bank of th . . '=' ' 5 e nver, ts a nearly perpendi.cnlar limestoue rock, presenting a umtormly unbroken SUI~face, twenty to .forty feet high,coutaining very great numbers of a ~arge umvalve shell, wb1ch appears to belong to the o-enus inoce1·amus and 111 the appendix is dcsignatecl by the No. 42. 0 ' In cotJtact with this, to the westward was another stratum of limestone containing fossil shells of a difi'et~eJ~t ch~racter; and still higl1er up ou th; s.tream were parall~l strata, c~ns1stmg of a compact somewhat crystalline limestone., and arglllaceons bttnminous limestone in thin layers. Dnring t~e mormng, we t~·avelled up the eastern fork of the Fontaine-qui-bouit l'I_ver, our road bcmg roughened by frequent deep gnllies timbered with p~ne, and. halted to noon on a small brauch of this stream, timbered princtpatly with the narrow-leaved cottonwood (J'l01Jttlus anrrusti'olia ) called b th C d. . ' I .:> ';/ t ' ' Y e ana tans ~zard a~nere. On a hill, near by, were two ren1arkable ~olumns of a . grayish-white conglomerate rock, one of which was about wenty feet h1gb., and two feet in diameter. They are surmounted hy slabs of a dark ferrugmous conglomerate formino- black caps and adc.lina very mnch t 0 th · 1 fl' '· 5 ' ::::> . etr co umnar e ect at a d1stanco. This rock is very de, tructible by the actwn. of tl~e weather, and tile hill, of which they formerly coustituted a part, 1s entirely abraded. A shaft of the gun carriage was broken in the afternoon ; and we made an early halt, the stream being from twelve to tweuty feet wide, with clear water. As usual, the clouds had gathered to a storm over the mountains an~ we ha 1 d a ~bowery evening. At sunset the thermometer stood at G2°; an our e evatwn above the sea was 6,530 feet. 119 [ 174 ] July 20.-~'his morning (ns we genera.lly found the. mornings under tl~cse moun tams) was very clear and beautiful, and the air cool and pleasant with the thermometer at 44°. We continued onr march up the stream, alo~g a green sloping bottom, between pine hills on the one haud. and the main Black hills on the other, towards the ridge which ·eparates the waters of the Platte from those of the Arkansas. As we approached tbe Jivic.ling ridge the whole valley wa radiant with flowers; blue, yellow, pink, white., scarl~t, and purple, vi!'d with each other in splendor. E parcette was one of the hiohly clwractoristic plants, and a brigln-lookino- Dower ( rraillw·dia u:ristata) was very Crcque11t; but the mo ~t abu11dant plant along our ron.d to-day WHS rreraniU?n 11UlC'U[utum, which is the Ch:tr::tCterisliC plant Oil this porrwn or tltc dividittg ground!". Crossing to the walers of 1hc Platte, fields of blue flax ncldcd to tho tnng nificence of this uwuntain _rrardcn; this was occasionally four feel i11 height, wbir.h wa a luxuriance or o-rowth that I rarely .saw rltis alnwst llllt\ · Pr~al platJt artai11 throughout the journey. Contiuuing down a brattclt of til· Platte, among high and very steep timbered !Jills, covered with f'ra gntC!I Is of rock, towards evct1ing we is. ttcd from the piney regiou, a11d t11ade o late eucampment ncar Pouo!lcal<e rock, on that fork of !It· river wlticlt we k HI asrcndrd on the Stlt of .fulv. Our nuimals . eujoyecJ the ahn11dant rn shc.s lllis evcuing, as the flies wcr(· o bad among the pines tlwt they !tad IH: ·n mncll ltarasseJ. A deer was killed here this eveniug ·and again tlte evening wns overcast, aud a collcctiou of brilliant red clouds in tltc west was foll0wec.l by the customary squall of rain. .liclliltea mil/efolium ( miltoil) wa amo11g the cbaracteri~r ic plants of the river bottoms to-day. This wa · one of the mo t conmwn plants during the whole of our journey, occmriug in almo. t every variety of , ituat io11. I 110ticed it on the lowlnnc; of the rivers, near t!Je coast of the Paci fic, and near to the snow among the mountains of the Sie·r1'a Nevoda. During this excursion, we hatl surveyecl to it head one of the two principal branches of tlte upper Arkausas, 75 miles in length, and entirely cornplered our survey of the. onth fork of the Platte, to the extreme sources of that portio11 of tlte river which belongs to the plains, n11d heads in the broken hills of the Arkansas dividing ridge, at the foot of the mouutains. That portion of its waters wl1ich were collected among these mou11tain , it was hoped to explore on our homcwarJ voyage. Reaching St. Vrain's fort on the morning of the 23J, we found Mr. Fitzpatrick and his party in good orcler aud excellent ltealth, and my trne ancl reliable friend, Kit Car on, who bad brotwht with him ten o-ood mules, with the neces -:uy pack saddle '. 1\Ir. Fitzpatrick, who had ot'ten endmed every extremity of want dmin~ the comse of his moun rain life, and knew well ~he value of provision in this country, had watched 1>V1~ r our stork with Jealous vio-ilancc, anu there was a11 abundance of flour, rice, ~ngar, and coffee, in tl1e camp; aud atrain we fared luxuriously. Meat was, however, very scarce; and two very suJall pif!R, which we obtaiucu at tile fort, did not go far among forty men. J\1r. Fitzpalrick hnd be:eu here a week, <luring which time his men haJ been occupied iu refiltiug the camp ; and the repose had been very ben ·f1cial to his animals, which were now in tolerably good condition. I had beeu able to obtain no certain information in regard to tbe character of the passes in tbis portion of the Rocky mountain rano-e, which hacl always been represented as impracticable for carriao-es, but tbe exploration of which was incideutalfy contemplated by my instructions, with the view I I |