156 NAREATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION. 



of the Mississippi, directly opposite the influx of the St. Peter's. 

 They occupy, geologically, a diluvial position, being at the bottom 

 of the prairie-drift stratum, and immediately above the superior 

 limestone. 



In the luxurious kitchen gardens of Camp Leavenworth, great 

 depredations have been made by a small quadruped of a burrow- 

 ing character, called gopher. By patient watching, gun in hand, 

 one of these was killed, and its skin preserved and prepared. 

 The animal is ten inches long to the termination of the tail, with 

 a body very much the size and color of a large wharf- rat. It has 

 five prominent claws, and two broad cutting teeth, but its most 

 striking peculiarity is a duplicature of the cheek, which permits 

 it to carry earth to the mouth of its burrow. It has been called 

 the pouched rat. Sir Francis Drake found a similar animal in 

 his visit to the Gulf of California, in 1587, The distribution of 

 this species, of which this seems to be the northern limit, is very 

 wide through Atlantic America, and it is known to be destructive 

 to vegetation throughout Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas. I 

 had, two years ago, been led to notice its ravages in Missouri 

 and Arkansas. But the animal called gopher, in the southern 

 country, is a burrowing tortoise, and the name is improperly ap- 

 plied to this species, which is the Pseudostoma pinetorum. 



A peculiar species of squirrel was observed in this vicinity., 

 which is also found to be a destructive visitor to the military 

 gardens. In appearance, this species resembles the common 

 striped squirrel, but it has a more elongated body, and shorter 

 legs. The body has six black stripes, with the same number of 

 intervening lines of spots, on a reddish-brown skin. This Minne- 

 sota sq^uirrel has, since the return of the Expedition, been named, 

 by the late Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell, sciurus tredecetim. 



The Eiver St. Peter's is called, by the Dacotas, Watepa Minne- 

 sota. The prefixed term watepa^ is their word for river ; minni 

 is the name for water. The term sola has been variously ex- 

 plained. The Canadian French, who have proved themselves 

 most apt translators of Indian phrases, render it by the word 

 hrouille^ or blear; or, if we regard this as derivative from the verb 

 brouiller, mixed, or mottled — a condition of the waters of this river, 

 whenever the Mississippi is in flood, and consequently at a higher 

 elevation when it rushes into the mouth of the St. Peter's, produc- 



