PAWNEE FORK.—DISTANCES AND RAILROAD GRADES. 23 
ridge between Walnut and Cow creeks, raised considerably above the level flat which borders 
Walnut creek, extending to the Arkansas river, which overflows far above the point near the 
road which, it is said, was first selected for this post. The site chosen by Major Johnson, five 
miles from the road, has the advantage also of being nearer the proposed road from the mouth 
of the Republican to New Mexico; but if water can be obtained still higher up, this latter road 
might be made still more direct. There is on Walnut creek no timber suitable for building 
purposes, but an abundance for present uses for fuel. The elm, ash, and cotton-wood trees are 
here frequently two feet in diameter at the base, but, four or six feet above, branch off into 
crooked gnarly trunks. The section passed to-day is generally very level. We passed Pawnee 
Rock, a noted topographical feature in this part of the country, during the morning. It is to 
the right of the road, about two miles from the Arkansas river, and terminates a ridge from the 
north in a bluff escarpment of highly ferruginous sandstone, twenty feet in height, on which 
many names of passers-by are inscribed. Shortly after leaving Pawnee Rock we crossed Ash 
creek—a dry bed, lined with the usual amount of timber—and encamped on Pawnee fork, after a 
march of twenty-eight miles. The grasses during the day became hourly poorer until we came 
upon this creek, where they are more fresh. The soil is also less fertile. Its surface is 
composed of fine sand mixed with vegetable mould, which, by the rains, becomes soft mud, and 
turning up in ruts, hardens, but is easily crushed again by the wheels. The water in Pawnee 
fork is twenty feet in width by from one to two in depth, with a fair current. During the day 
we passed water only ina few pools. The timber on this creek, like that of all the streams 
hereabouts, is small, scattered and ugly—more of bushes than trees—looking in its tortuous lines 
not unlike the lining to the fences of some thriftless New England farmer, who gives a wide 
margin to blackberry and elder bushes, interspersing them with an occasional elm. This camp, 
293 miles by the Santa Fé road and 322 miles by the Smoky Hill route from our camp near 
Westport, is 972 feet above that camp, giving, besides the usual inequalities of a rolling prairie 
country, which have been duly noted, an average grade or ascent to the mile of about three feet 
three inches, and three feet, respectively, for these distances. Large numbers of Kansas and 
Osage Indians, on their usual buffalo hunts, are encamped to the southeast two or three miles on 
the Arkansas river, and their large herds of horses are scattered over the plains for miles. They 
are filthy, dirty beings, and quite as impudent and pilfering as their wilder brethren to the west. 
This morning they visited the party of officers spoken of as returning from New Mexico, a few 
miles from our camp on Walnut creek, and helped themselves to several light articles before the 
men who were sleeping in the wagons could be got out to disperse them. 
