78 Expedition, &c. 



i 



tians. It consists of two stones, and while one person causes 

 the uppermost to revolve horizontally upon the disk of the 

 other, a second, who is usually a child or a woman, intro- 

 duces the corn a few grains at a time, through a perforation 

 in the upper stone. Some are content with the still ruder 

 apparatus, consisting of an excavation in the top of a stump, 

 into which the corn is thrown, and brayed with a pestle. 

 This is the method in use among many of the agricultural 

 Indians. 



A large species of Lampyris is common on the lower part 

 of the Missouri. It is readily distinguished from the small- 

 er species, the common fire fly, by its mode of coruscating. 

 It emits from three to seven or eight flashes, in rapid suc- 

 cession, then ceases; but shortly after renews its brilliancy. 

 This species appears early in May; we saw many of them in 

 returning by night, from the Merameg to St. Louis; but be- 

 fore our arrival at Loutre island they had disappeared, and 

 were succeeded by great numbers of the Lampyris pyralis, 

 whose coruscations are inferior in quantity of light, and ap- 

 pear singly. 



The black walnut attains, in the Missouri bottoms, its 

 greatest magnitude. Of one, which grew near Loutre island, 

 there had been made two hundred fence-rails, eleven feet in 

 length, and from four to six inches in thickness. A cotton 

 tree in the same neighbourhood produced thirty thousand 

 shingles, as we were informed by a credible witness. 



