Rocky Mountains. 51 



Among a variety of stratagems, practiced in this part of 

 the country, to obtain titles to lands, was one which will be 

 best explained, by the following anecdote, related to us by a 

 respectable citizen of St. Genevieve. Preparatory to taking 

 possession of Louisiana, in 1805, the legislature passed a 

 law, authorising a claim to one section of land, in favor of 

 an) person, who should have actually made improvements, 

 in any part of the same, previous to the year 1804. Commis- 

 sioners were appointed, to settle all claims of this descrip- 

 tion; more commonly known, by the name of improvement 

 rights. A person, some where in the county of Cape Girar- 

 deau, being desirous of establishing a claim of this kind to 

 a tract of land, adopted the following method. The time 

 having expired for the establishment of a right, agreeably to 

 the spirit of the law, he took with him two witnesses, to the 

 favourite spot, on which he wished to establish his claim, 

 and in their presence, marked two trees, standing on oppo- 

 site sides of a spring; one with the figures 1803, the other 

 1804, and placed a stalk of growing corn, in the spring. 

 He then brought the witnesses before the commissioners, 

 who upon their declaration, that they had seen corn growing 

 at the place specified, in the spring between 1803 and 1804, 

 admitted the claim of the applicant, and gave him a title to 

 the land. In the old district of Cape Girardeau, as in other 

 parts of Louisiana, the difficulty of establishing indisputable 

 titles to the lands, arising out of the great number of Span- 

 ish grants, preemption, and improvement claims, has greatly 

 retarded the settlement of the country.* Establishments 

 were made here more than one hundred and fifty years 

 since ; yet the features of the country are little changed, 

 retaining the rudeness and glominess of the original forest. 

 At five o'clock, on the afternoon of the sixth, we passed 

 the Platteen rock, a perpendicular precipice, not unlike the 



* Ample information, on the subject of land titles, is contained in Stod- 

 dart's Sketches of Louisiana, page 243 — 267. 



