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~~ has cost many volunteers their horses, and entailed trouble without 
end on’ many inexperinced travellers ‘‘ westward bound.’”? The . 
next day immense herds of thé buffalo were seen. r 
_._ -We were now on ground (see map of July 10th) which is tra- 
versed by the nomadic tribes of Pawnees, Sioux, Osages, and oc- 
_ easionally the Comanches. Their range is seldom farther east than 
_ Council Grove. The country thence, to the western borders of 
- Missouri, isin the hands of Indians owing allegiance to, and re- 
ceiving stipends from the United States ; they live in log-houses, — 
cultivate the soil, rear cattle, and pursue some of the arts of peace. 
They form the connecting link between the savage of the plains 
' and the white man of the States. Se 
‘ The latitude of our camp, afew thousand feet southeast of where 
- the road crosses the Pawnee Fork; is 38° 10’ 10’; and the longi- 
_ tude, by chronometer, is 98° 55’-22’. -The height above the sea, 
"indicated approximately by the barometer, is 1,932 feet; the point, 
as will be seen on the map, is but a short distance from the junc- 
tion of the Pawnee Fork and the Arkansas river.” 
_ The section of country embraced between this point and Bent’s © 
Fort is totally different in character from that just described, but 
the change is gradual, and may be anticipated from what has been. 
said in referrence to the appearance of the country so far ezst as 
the 98th degree, or even the 97th meridian. : 
_ The position of our camp near Bent’s Fort, determined by 29 al- 
titudes of polaris and 35 circum-meridian altitudes of alpha aquile, 
is 38° 02’ 53,” and the longitude, by the measurement of distances 
og ae tween ¢ and the * alpha aquile and the *spica virginis, is 103° ~ 
— Ol’, agreeing within 34s. with the chronometric determination of 
_ the same point.—(See Appendix.) 3 
_ Our route from Pawnee Fork to this point, was along the Arkan- 
“sas river. The approximate height of Bent’s Fort above the sea is 
_ 3,958 feet, and the height where we first struck the river, at the 
' : 1,658 feet, the distance between these two points being 311 
al 
] 
va 
. benc > is sq 
_ miles, the fall of the rivér is about seven feet and four-tenths per | 
_. mile. Its bed is of sand, sometimes of rounded pebbles of the pri- 
- mitive rock. It is seldom more than 150 yards wide, and, but for 
_ the quicksands, is every where fordable. “The bottom land, a few 
feet above the level of the water, varies in width from half a mile 
_ to two miles, and is generally covered with good nutritious grass. 
_ Beyond this the ground rises by gentle slopes into a wilderness of 
_ sand hills on the south and into prairie on the north. There are 
one or two exceptions; for instance, at the great bend, the sand hills 
_ from the south impinge abruptly on the course of the river; at 
_~ Pawnee rock,.a long swell in the ground terminates in an abrupt 
hill of highly ferruginous sand stone; and ten miles above Cho- 
_» teau’s island, the hills along the river are vertical, as if the river | 
nad cut a passage through them; and as you approach Bent’s Fort, 
é hills generally roll in more boldly on theriver, and the bottoms _ 
e narrower, and the grass more precious.- cae ee 
ese places the geological formation can be seen distinetly. 
n the lower part of the river it is a conglomerate of pebbles, 
etimes shells cemented by lime and clay overlaying a stratum 
a ~— os 
he a * 
