OCR Text |
Show i53 face of the country, as £.11' as they could see, present .. ing the same aspect; they returned to the camp, at the hot springs, on the evening of the thirtieth, by another route, in which they met with nothing worthy notice. In consequence of the rains which had fallen, Mr. Dunbar, and those who were transporting the baggage to the river camp, found the road watry. The soil 'on the flat lands under the stratum of vegetable mould is yellowish, and consists of decomposed schistus, of which there are immense beds in every stage of dissolution, from the hard stone recently uncovered and partially decomposed to the yellow and apparently homogeneous earth. The covering of vegetable earth between the hills and the river is, in most places, sufficiently thick to constitute a good soil, being from four to six inches ; and it is the opinion of the people upon the Washita, that wheat will grow here to great perfection. Although the higher hills, three hundred to six hundred feet in height, are very rocky, yet the inferior hills, and the sloping bases of the first, are generally covered with a soil of a middling quality. r.fhe natural productions are sufficiently luxuriant, consisting chiefly of black and red oak, intermixed with a variety of other woods, and a considerable undergrowth. Even on these rocky hills are three or four species of vines, said to produce annually an abundance of excellent grapes. A great variety of plants which grow here, some of which in their season are said to produce flowers highly ornamental, would probably reward the researches of the botanist. On the morning of the 8th January, 1805, the party left Ellis's on the river can1p, where they had been detained for several days, waiting for such a rise in the waters of the river, as would carry their boat in 5afety over the numerous rapids below. A rise of about six feet, which had taken place the evening before, determined them to move this morning; and they passed the chuttes about one o'clock. They stopped to examine the rocky promontary below these 159 fulls, and took some specimens of the stone which so much res~mbles the Turkey oil stone. It appears too bard. ~he strata of this chain were observed to run perpendicul~rly nearly east and west, crossed by fissures. at ~Ight angles from five to eight feet apart; th~ lamma from one fourth of an inch to five inches in thickness. ~bout a league belo\v, they landed at W~cts~one . hx.ll and took several specimens. This proJectmg hill Is a mass of greyish blue schistus of conderable hardness, and about twenty feet perpendicular n~t regularly so, and from a quarter to two inches i~ th1c~ness, but does not split with an even surface. . o-1 hey landed again on th~. morning of the 9th, in SI0 ht .of the bayau de la pra1ne de champignole, to examxne and take specimens of some free stone and blue slate. The slate is a blue schistus, hard, brittle, and unfit for the covering of a house ; none proper for that pmyose have been discovered, except 011 the Ca~fat, which Dr. Hunter met with in one of his excursions. On t~e evening of ~he lOth they encamped near Arclo~ s Trong?s, havmg .been only three days in de. scendmg the distance wh1ch took them thirteen to ascend. They stop~cd s?me ~in1e at the camp of a Mr. ~e ~evre. He Is an Intelligent man, a native of the Ilhnms, but now residing at the Arkansas. He came here with some D~laware and other Indians, whom he had fitted out With goods, and receives their peltry, fur, &c. at a stipulated price, as it is brought In by the hunters. Mr. Le F evre possesses considerable knowledge of the interior of the country; he confirms the accounts before obtained, that the hills or mountains which give rise to this little river are in a m~nner insulated; . that is, they are entirely shut in and mclosed by the Immense plains or prairies which exten~ beyo~d the Red river, to the south, and beyond the Missoun, or at least some of its branches to the nor~h, and ~a~g~ along the eastern base of the great cham, or d1v1dmg ridge, commonly known by the |