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[ 174] , 
July. They had apparently killed buffalo here, as many bones. were 
lying about, and the frames where the hides had been stretched were yet 
standing, The road of the day had kept the valley, which is sometimes 
rich and well timbered, though the country is generally sandy. Mingled 
with ‘the usual plants, a thistle (carduus deucdgraphus) had for the last 
day or two made its appearance ; and along the river bottom, tradescantiu 
(virginica) and milk plant (asclepias syriaca*) in considerable quantities. 
Our march to-day had been twenty-one miles, and the astronomical ob- 
servations gave us a chronometric longitude of 98° 22' 12", and latitude 
40° 26’ 50". We were moving forward at seven in the morning, and in 
about five miles reached a fork of the Blue, where the road leaves that 
river, and crosses over to the Platte. No water was to be found on the 
dividing ridge, and the casks were filled, and the animals here allowed a 
shert-repose. ‘The road led across a high and level prairie ridge, where 
were but few plants, and those principally thistle (carduus leucographus,) 
and a kind of dwarf artemisia. Antelope were seen frequently during 
the morning, which was very storfay. Squalls of rain, with thunder and 
lightning, were around us in every direction; and while we were envel- 
oped in one of them, a flash, which seemed to scorch our eyes as it 
passed, struck in the prairie within a few hundred feet, sending up a 
column of dust. , ‘ 
Crossing on the way several Pawnee roads to the Arkansas, we reach- 
ed, in about twenty-one miles from our halt on the Blue, what is called 
the coast of the Nebraska, or Platte river. This had seemed in the dis 
tance a range of high and broken hills; but on a nearer approach were 
found to be elevations of, forty to sixty feet, into which the wind had 
worked the sand. They were covered with the usual fine grasses of the 
country, and bordered the eastern side of the ridge on a breadth of about 
the amerpha, in full bloom, 
purple clusters, From the foot of the coast, a distance of two miles across 
miles; and the geological 
m E sa sites. 
“2 
The French there eat, the tender shoots in the spring, as we do 
of the 8, gatheri ain the morning when 
riferous, and in Canada chatins the traveller, especially when in ; e 
* 
