NARRATIVE OF 1853. 83 
GENERAL REVIEW OF COUNTRY. 
The whole distance from St. Paul to Fort Union by our route is, by odometer measurement, 
1153 miles, and we had accomplished it since June 8, the day the baggage train left Camp 
Pierce, or in 55 days, and, excluding halts from time to time, (7 days,) in 48 travelling days. 
The rate of travelling was therefore about 15 miles a day, most of the way over a country 
almost unknown, without roads, and with such an imperfect knowledge of the distances to be 
made between camps as to cramp our movements much more than if the route had been 
measured and itineraries constructed for our use. 
The Bois de Sioux, at the point of crossing, twenty-five miles below its source in Lake 
Traverse, is 70 feet wide and from four to seven feet deep; the soil is rich on its banks, and 
beyond it for eleven miles, to Wild Rice river, extends a smooth, flat prairie. This last stream 
is 40 feet wide, skirted with elms. Thence a smooth prairie extends to Shyenne river; sand 
knolls, ponds, and marshes become frequent as the river is approached, but do not injure the 
nature of the road. The Shyenne is 60 feet wide and 14 deep, being the largest branch of Red 
river crossed by the train, and resembles the preceding stream, except in the smaller amount 
of timber and the greater depression of its valley below the general surface. 
Forty-five miles south of this place, and near the head of Lake Traverse, commences the 
elevated ridge called the Céteau des Prairie, which forms the first of the high barren 
ridges separating the branches of the Missouri south of the proposed route, and rising 2,046 
feet above the sea level. 
The route across the bend of the Shyenne leads over higher and drier prairies, with still 
less wood and water, for 85 miles; not a tree in sight for intervals of 20 miles, and the surface 
becoming more broken with deep coulées and ravines towards the second crossing of the 
river, which is here only 50 feet wide and three or four deep, flowing some 150 or 200 feet 
below the general level, and with steep bluffs on the sides. The valley is half a mile wide and 
the shores wooded. Salt grass and deposits of salt present themselves on the way, and nume- 
rous small marshes and ponds intersect the road, but form no serious obstacle. (ре 
Near the Shyenne considerable limestone occurs, and in many places the ground in the vicinity 
аз well as incrustation on the stone indicate the presence of iron; probably decomposed pyrites. 
All difficulties in this part are avoided by the line passing south of the Shyenne, as already 
mentioned, where traversed by Lieutenant Grover. 
The country now assumes a bolder character; th 
and ridges; ponds and marshes occur more frequently; timber Sijeppoars fon the uplands; 
the prairie becomes gravelly and abounds in granite boulders; and the river itself, moderately 
fringed with wood of different kinds, flows through a deep intervale, enclosed by sand and clay 
bluffs from 150 to 200 feet high; which are again surmounted by occasional hills sufficiently 
the hunters, and associated with thrilling reminiscences 
e swelling surface takes the form of terraces 
conspicuous to serve as landmarks to 
of Indian story. 
This forms the lower terrace of the dividing cóteau, as described by Lieutenant Grover. 
After leaving the Shyenne at its second crossing, the country becomes still more elevated 
and undulating, with less water, and for ninety miles not a stick of wood. The general eleva- 
tion of the surface does not rise much above fifteen hundred feet, and forms a terrace from 
