NARRATIVE OF 1853. 79 
and drawing the surface water of the vicinity into the lake. Wood is scarce at the lake, 
probably from its destruction by the Indians and by prairie fires. 
Rabbit river discharges into it about three miles from its foot, being there ten yards wide, 
with a rapid current and rocky bottom. 
The Bois de Sioux, which forms its outlet, runs a few degrees east of north, and with a 
slow current, not exceeding a mile an hour, forms one of the principal branches of Red river. 
Lieutenant Grover followed it down for twenty-two miles, and found it to vary in width from 
forty to over a hundred yards. Its bottom is sandy, and depth not more than four feet. In 
ordinary stages its water is nearly flush with its banks, but in floods it overflows the bottom 
for a mile in breadth. 
He crossed it only three miles higher up than the crossing of the main train, and again 
diverging from our route in a direction a little north of west, crossed a scarcely perceptible 
divide, and struck the Wild Rice river where it makes a wide bend near a tract of sand hills 
called Lightning Neck, which spring up abruptly from the level plain, and cover several 
miles of area. He crossed the Wild Rice thirty-five miles from the Bois de Sioux, where it is 
only fifteen yards wide- and four feet deep. Thence to Jacques, or James river, fifty miles in 
а direct line, extends a gently rolling prairie, with some high sandy divides and rocky ridges. 
near its centre, among which the most prominent is Dead Colt Hillock. 
James river, which flows into the Missouri, is near the mouth of Grizzly Bear creek, a 
clear, sluggish stream, averaging forty-five yards in width, five feet deep, and with a hard clay 
bottom. It takes a sinuous course through a rich valley from one to three miles wide, and in 
parts subject to overflow. The Grand Cóteau, or dividing ridge between James river and 
the Missouri, may be regarded as divided into two terraces; the first, with a general level about 
ninety feet above James river, having a very gently rolling surface, so that the second terrace 
may be seen above it at a distance of thirty or forty miles. There are but few streams, some 
of them becoming dry and nearly all the water being collected into little ponds, many of which 
are never dry. The soil of this lower terrace is harder and drier than the prairies previously 
passed over, and contains more gravel. This terrace is fifteen or twenty miles wide, and is 
then succeeded by the second, а broad expanse of broken country, irregular in outlines. Sec- 
tions of it are merely high and rolling, with sometimes an extended level plateau; other 
parts rising in abrupt peaks of no great height, or again in long bare ridges. Small lakes are 
numerous, some of them salt. 
Skirting this high terrace for fifty-two miles he reached the head waters of Shyenne river, 
and soon after Mouse river, 180 miles northwest of where he crossed the James, and at our 
‘camp of July 20, whence to Fort Union his course coincided very nearly with ours. 
LIEUTENANT DONELSON’S TRIP UP THE MISSOURI. 
Lieutenant Donelson’s party for the survey of the Missouri consisted of Lieutenant John 
Mullan of the army, Mr. W. M. Graham, astronomer, one sergeant, two artificers, and three 
privates of the corps of sappers and miners. Lieutenant Mullan was placed in charge of the 
meteorological observations, and also assisted in making the topography, Serjeant Collins aiding 
him in this branch. The steamboat Robert Campbell, in which he engaged passage, was 
