9 | [26] 
late in the night at Camp Osage, (16 miles,) the first camp near the Arkan- 
sas. ‘To-day we saw signs of the buffalo, and the first prairie dog village. 
ne 5.—Along the Arkansas, about two miles north of the river, we 
marched eight miles, up.to Walnut creek, another of its tributaries, to make 
our usual noon halt. On the road we met with the first buffaloes, in small, 
bands, but they were too wild for us to approach them. 
on our morning march, about three miles north of the Arkanse 
there is a slight chain of hills in the prairie, mostly overgrown with grass, 
d by a prairie grave on this elevation, made of a heap of ro 
tonished to find these rocks not to be lime or sandstone, but te 
canic formation; and upon further examination, I discovere 
« 
er and lighter. he character of the rock, as well n 
accidental ignition of underlying coalfields.* - When, in the evening of the 
same day, I found the same formation again on Pawnee Rock, it was in so 
i i 
of the road. The whole plain through which we passed was really covered 
with bands of buffaloes; their number must have been at least 30,000. 
The hunting fever soon became epidemic; all rifles and pistols were put 
into action, but the huge animals were more frightened than injured. ‘The 
level, of the plain did not allow us to take them by surrounding, and only the 
hunters, who chased them on fast horses, had the good fortune to kill any. 
About six miles east of Ash creek there is a prominent rock seen to the right 
of the road, connected with a small chain of hills, and known under the 
* John Bradbury, (Travels in the Interior of America in 1809, 710, and 711: Liverpool, 1817,) 
p- 153, says: “ 1 observed a vein of fine coal, about 18 inches thick, in the perpendicular bluff, 
below the fort—(the Missouri. Fur Company’s fort, on the upper Missouri, above the Mandan 
village.) On showing some specimens of it to some of the hunters in the fort, they assured me it 
was a very common substance higher up the river, and that there were places on which it was on 
fire. As pumice is often found floating down the Missouri, I have made frequent inquiries of 
i anches, but could not procure from 
them any information that would warrant any such conclusion. It is probable, therefore, that 
beds. 
_ Major Stephen H. Long, (Account of an Expedition from Pittsburg to the Rocky Mountains, 
in 1819 and. 20: Philadelphia, 1823, vol. ii, p. 80,) wifen passing through the Raton mountains, 
remarks: “ This sand rock, disclosed at the bottom of a ravine, is of a slaty structure, and em- 
beds of bituminous clay slate, which contains pieces of charcoal, or the carbonized 
ns of vegetables, in every possib] p bling the charcoal produced by the process 
of combustion in the open air. In the ravines and over the surface.of the soil we observed mass- 
es of light, porous, reddish brown substance, greatly resembling thatso often seen floating down, 
the Missouri—by some considered a product of pseudo-voleanic fires, said to exist on the upper 
branches of that : . 
‘ river.” 
we * / 
