216 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



tion that white men had ever visited the place. I told my men we 

 had found "paradise" at last. The stream and valley became known 

 as "Mead's Paradise" — ^a hunters' paradise it was. In one day we se- 

 cured eighty-two wolves and as many buffalo, elk and deer as we 

 wished. In 1860 Gen. Hugh McKee, of Leavenworth, surveyed the 

 Saline river country and adopted, in his report, the names I had given 

 to these streams. Near the site of our camp the town of Paradise 

 now stands. 



The "Ninnescah " river is an Osage (Dakota) name, meaning "good I 

 spring-water," from the great number of springs coming out of the 

 Tertiary gravels of its upper course. 



"Neosho" is also an Osage name, meaning "ne," water, and 

 "osho," clear — Neosho, water clear. In the Indian languages the ad- 

 jective comes after the noun. 



"Smoot's creek," in Kingman county, was named after Col. S. S, 

 Smoot, of Washington, D. C, who surveyed that county in 1865. 



"Chisholm creek," which runs through the east side of Wichita, 

 was named after Jesse Chisholm, a noted Cherokee trader, who built 

 the first cabin on the creek, and occupied it with his family from 1864 

 to 1867. 



"Hell creek," a branch of the Saline, was appropriately named 

 from some experiences of myself and other hunters in buffalo days. 



"Medicine Lodge" is of Indian origin. The first explorers found 

 on that stream a great house built of posts, poles, and brush, where 

 from time out of mind the Cheyenne Indians annually assembled to 

 worship the Great Spirit and initiate their young men in their secret 

 rites and ceremonies, thus preserving ancient traditions and customs. 

 White men called this "making medicine"; hence the name, "Medi- 

 cine Lodge." 



"Skeleton creek" was a name we gave to a stream in Oklahoma in 

 1867. When the Wichita Indians, moving south, died of cholera in 

 great numbers, on the head of that stream close to the present town 

 of Enid, I saw their skeletons lying unburied on the ground a 

 month or two after their death. Prior to that time the stream had 

 no name. 



"Round Pond creek," in Oklahoma, was named by us in 1864, 

 from a circular body of water surrounding a beautiful island, which 

 had been in former years a bend of the stream. In time the narrow 

 neck of land was worn through, leaving a lake surrounding an island. 

 In time the Rock Island railroad, following our trail south, crossed 

 Pond creek near this lake, and the towns of Round Pond and Pond 

 Creek were founded. One of these towns survives. 



