12 Miscellaneous Facts. 
Ill. Miscenuaneous Facts. 
‘In answer to various inquiries addressed by the editor to Mr. Ball, 
after the perusal of the foregoing communication, he has been so 
obliging as to add the following notices which, we cannot doubt, will 
add to the interest of his valuable paper. 
Events, Commencement and Motives of the Journey. 
Mr. Ball left Baltimore, March 27, 1832, and passed by the rail 
road, and national road to Brownsville on the Monongahela, thence by 
steamboat to the Ohio, and then down that river, and up the Mis- 
sissippi and Missouri, to Lexington, in the State of Missouri, where, 
he and his companions arrived April 29. He did not describe the 
countries, whose geological sections are so well exhibited on the rail 
roads and the rivers, because it has been done by others. Leisure, 
a strong desire to roam, especially to see the vast and untamed re- 
gions of the utmost west and the solemn ocean-barrier of the im- 
mense Pacific, rather than motives of personal advantage, duced 
him to unite himself to a party of adventurers, who were about to 
cross the Rocky Mountains. 
On the 7th day of May, 1832, says Mr. Ball, we, the twelve who 
crossed the continent, with about as many more, who started with 
that intention, joined oursélves to a trading party of about seventy 
men, headed by a Mr. Wm. Sublette, and commenced our march, 
crossing the line of the State, of Missouri on the 13th, as stated in 
my communication. The whole band of horses and mules used for 
the purpose of riding and packing goods, amounted to almost three 
hundred. We marched and encamped in the usual way of fur tra- 
ders, always prepared to act on the defensive ; and after being out a 
few days, subsisting entirely by the chase,—were, one night, on the 
mountains, fired upon by the Black Foot Indians, and lost some hor- 
ses; and at another time, had a battle with Indians of the same tribe, 
when five trappers were killed. On the Lewis and Columbia, we 
subsisted chiefly on Salmon—at one time, we had nothing for four 
or five days, except for the two first days, some small fruit—but we 
had horses with us, and of course, ran no risk of starvation. 
The difference of longitude between St. Louis and the mouth of 
the Columbia, is about 34°; therefore, by making an allowance of 
about 7° difference of latitude, with the diminished distance between 
the parallels of longitude, I estimated the direct distance to be 
about eighteen hundred miles. The entire distance which we travel- 
