| OCR Text |
Show lJ8 This tnan has resided forty years on the \Vas!1itn, -and before that period, has _been up t!1e A:cansa nver, the White river, and the. r~ver St. ! ra~cis; ~h~ two last, he informs, are of difficult ~av1~atwn, Similar to the Washita, but the Arkansa nver Is of great magnitude, having a large and broad channe~, and wh~n the water is low, has great sand banks, hk: those I!l the Mississippi. So i~1r as .he has ?een u.p It th~ navigation is safe and commoch.ous, ~·dthout 1n~pcdnncnts from rocks shoals, or rap1ds; Its bed bemg formed of n1ud and sand. The soil on it is of the _first rate quality. The country is easy of access, bcmg lofty open forests, une1nbarrassed by ca~es or u~1clc r ~rmrth. The water is disa()"reeable to dnnk, bemg ot a red colour and bracki~ when the river is low. A multi. tude of creeks which flow into the .i\rkansa fu rm~h sweet water which the voy8ger is obliged to c.Jrry with him f~r the supply of his ~mmedi~te 'vants. This man confirms the accounts of s1lver bcmg abuncl. ant up that river: he has n~t been s~ high a.s to .sec i,t himself but says he receHTd a s1lvcr pm f1 om a hunter 'who ass~uecl him that he hin1self collected the virgin ~ilver from. th~ ro~k, out of '''h.ich he mad~ the epinglete by hammcnng :tout .. ~he tnbe of the Osage live higher up than th1s position, but the hunters rarely go so high, being afraid of these savages, who are at war with all the world, and destroy all strangers they meet with. It is reported that .the Arcansa nation, with a part of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Shaw. neese, &c. have formed a league, and are actually gone, or going, 800 strong, against these d~predat~ ors, with a view to destroy or dri\'e them ~ntlrely ?fl, and possess themselves of their fine praines, ,~·luch are most abundant hunting ground, being plentifully stocked with buff.:1.loe_, elk, deer, bear, a~d eve~y other beast of the chase comn1on to those latitudes 111 America. 1..,his hunter having given infon~ation of a small spring in their vicinity, frmn which he frequ ently supplied himself by evaporating the water, doctor 139 Hunter, with a party, accompanied hin1, on the morning of the 29th November, to the place. They found a saline, about a n1ile and a half north of the camp from whence they set out, and near a creek which enters the Washita a little above. It is situated in the bottom of the bed of a dry gulley. The surrounding land is rich, and 'veil timbered, but subject to inundation, except an Indian mount on the creek side, having a base of eighty or a hundred feet diameter, and twenty feet high. After digging about three feet, through blue clay, they caine to a quicksand, from which the water flon·ed in abundance: its taste was salt and bitter, resembling that of water in the ocean. In a second hole it required them to dig six feet before they reached the quicksand, in doing which they threw np several broken pieces of Indian pottery. The specific gravity, compared with the river, was, from the first pit, or that three feet deep, 1,02720, from the second pit, or that six feet deep, 1,02104, yield: ing a saline mass, from the evaporation of ten quarts, which, when dry, \Veighed eight ounces: this brine is, therefore, about the same strength as that of the ocean on our coast, and twice the strength of the famous licks in Kentucky called Bullet's lick, and Mann's lick, from which so n1uch salt is made. The "fourche de Cadaux" (Cadacloquis fork) which they passed on the morning of the 30th, is about one hundred yards wide at its entrance into the \Vasltita, from the left: immediately beyond which, on the same side, the land is high, probably elevated three hundred feet above the water. The shoals and rapids here impede their progress. At noon they deduced their lutitude, by observation, to be 30°. 11'. 3711 • N. Receiving i!1formation o~ another salt li~k, or s<1line, doctor Hunter landed, wnh a party, to view it. The pit was found in a low fiat place, subject to be overflo\vcd from 'the river; it was wet and muddy, the earth on the surface yellow, but on digging through about four feet of blue clav' the salt water oozed from <( |
