34 FROM FORT KEARNY TO FORT LARAMIE. 



leaving the Blue. This little creek, running parallel with the 

 South Fork, winds its very sinuous waj, without bank or shrub or 

 bush to mark its course, until it discharges its waters into the 

 river several miles below. The bluffs on our left continue to pre- 

 sent the same wild forms, being also clothed in many places with 

 trees, among which the white-cedar appeared to predominate. 

 Owing to the sandy nature of the soil, no fossils were found in a 

 perfect state, except two varieties of shells: some imperfect re- 

 mains of teeth were also seen, but in too frail a condition to be pre- 

 served. About six miles below the Forks, the bluffs presented a 

 rougher appearance than those passed early in the day. The prin- 

 cipal ravines did not appear to extend very far back, but were of 

 considerable width, and intersected by others which came into them 

 from every direction. Their sides were very steep, rising in some 

 cases to the height of two hundred feet ; and so entirely was the 

 surface of the ground intersected and cut up, that it was difficult 

 to find a spot of even a few yards square that did not enter into 

 the formation of some one of them. The prodigious quantity of 

 earth that has been removed by the action of water cannot be ima- 

 gined without witnessing the scene here presented. The soil com- 

 posing the hills, although mixed more or less with clay, is sandy, 

 and occasionally assumes the character of a very friable sandstone. 

 Opposite the Forks, however, the formation of the bluffs again 

 alters, and begins to assume a more undulatory and less precipi- 

 tous appearance, not so much traversed by ravines. This change 

 is occasioned by the cropping out of a stratum of a whitish sand- 

 stone. The bluffs passed to-day must, at a period long back, have 

 extended much closer to the river than where we now find them, 

 having, in fact, been gradually washed into it, lea"\dng the valley 

 much broader, and, to a certain extent, one of denudation. 



Carduus, Cactus mth a large sickly-looking yellow flower, ^mor- 

 pha, Tradescantia, a small sunflower, and a species of milk-plant 

 were here found. The Amorpha is beginning to bloom. The vetch, 

 with its purple clusters, is met with, but seems of a different species 

 from that seen heretofore, and has not so much foliage. 



Wednesday/, June 27. — To-day the hunters killed their first buf- 

 falo ; but, in order to obtain it, had to diverge some four or five 

 miles from the road, and to pass back of the bluffs, the instinct or 

 experience of these sagacious animals having rendered them shy 

 of approaching the line of travel. This has not always been the 

 case, for it is a well-attested fact, that when the emigration first 



