THE MISSOURI AND PLATTE RIVERS, ETC. 9 
with coarse grass and other apt their roots penetrating so deep 
that it is almost impossible to pull t ut 
e sand is formed into limited ‘eiianh, over the rims of which 
are constantly passing up one side and down the other, the feet of the 
; ees frequently sinking so as to make the progress excessively 
abori 
The een is eee solitary, silent, and desolate, and de- 
pressing to one’s spirits. ntelope, an at sometimes buffalo, are 
numerous. This is the common war ground for the Dacotas, Urows, 
quarter of a mile of an enemy’s camp Grithout the faites sound 
I am told, increase in heig t, eg = are pe for horses. Their 
east and west limits are not well known, but they undonbtedly 
occupy nearly all the country between Loup Fork <a l’ Kau qui Court, 
and form a lasting barrier to any direct economical wheel communi- 
cation between them. Their width where we crossed is sixty miles. 
The country lying between the Republican Forkf the Kansas, and 
the South Fork of the Platte, described by Captain Fremont, (Senate 
Doe. No. ao ng tee 28th Congr ess, pp. 109, 110 ,) 1s most probably 
a similar re 
The Citemns “dis Missouri, in Minnesota, has a soil of only two or 
three inches, beneath which is the cravel, &c., of the boulder forma- 
tion; it extends east nearly to te Vermilion river 
RIVERS. 
The a ane is the most important river as regards our dealings 
with the Dacotas. Flowing through the middle of their country, ‘it 
furnishes us ah a base from which, with short lines of march, we 
can reach almost any portion of their lands, and many of them have 
their permanent home upon its banks. My remarks upon it will be 
confined wholly to that portion a the mouth of the Shyenne, and 
which came under my own observatio 
The bottom lands and some of the tates islands are from fifteen to 
twenty feet above low water, and rarely overflowed, though during 
the melting of the snows this sometimes happens. ‘he wood on these 
bottom lands, from being large and dense, as in the State of Missouri, 
gradually becomes thinner as we ascend to the mouth of the Vermil- 
ion, and above this it generally is only a narrow belt, varying from 
a single tree to groves half a mile in width, alter nating on either side, 
or occupying a few of the larger islands; sometimes these, as Farm 
island, below Fort Pierre, and “the large island below the mouth of the 
shyenne, contain prairies in their interior. I believe, however, that 
timber sufficient for the wants of a military post exists everywhere 
within reasona able distance on the Missouri, as _— up as the Big — : : 
- ~ idem and above this the timber is said to impro 
