VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. &9 



Grand River of the Arkansa, fifty miles up which 

 river, one of the principal springs is now worked. 

 This place I have caiefully examined. Here the 

 springs, which are uncommonly clear, strong, and 

 copious, distinctly and immediately issue through a 

 bed of calcareous rock, and are accompanied by a 

 stream of sulphuretted hydrogen gas, but occasion- 

 ing only a minute deposition of sulphur. Other 

 springs, equally productive, likewise occur in the 

 distance of twenty-five miles further up this stream 

 The Cherokees have discovered springs of salt wa- 

 ter on the banks of the Illinois of Arkansa, but in 

 this quarter as well as on the banks of Grand River, 

 they do not happen to be accompanied by any re- 

 mains of quadrupeds. 



Unconnected with this soil and strata, though 

 scarcely with our subject, is the gypseous Red Clay 

 formation, and the salt which it affords. Of the ex- 

 istence of this salt formation towards the sources of 

 Red River, there is the most unequivocal evidence ; 

 it is the abundance of this mineral, independent of 

 that of the calcareous stratum, which so frequently 

 communicates, particularly in the inundation of the 

 Red water, a sensible brackishness to the whole 

 stream of the Arkansa, and occasions its water to be 

 preferred by all the wild and domestic animals. In- 

 deed, in dry seasons, like that of the last autumn, 

 (1819) a saline efflorescence was sufficiently visible 

 over all its argillaceous deposits. The locality of 

 this red clay so^l is sufficiently attested by a slight 



