$2 Expedition to the 



sonal intrepidity to recommend him. Cote Sans Dessein 

 contains a tavern, a store, a blacksmith's shop, and a bil- 

 liard table. 



The Cane* is no where met with on the Missouri ; but its 

 place is in part supplied by the equisetum hiemale, which, re- 

 maining green through the winter, affords an indifferent pas- 

 turage for horned cattle and horses ; to the latter, it often 

 proves deleterious. The inhabitants of St. Genevieve placed 

 their horses upon an island covered with rushes, where great 

 numbers of them shortly after died ; but it was observed that 

 such as received regularly a small quantity of salt remain- 

 ed uninjured. Of a large number of horses, placed on an 

 island near the mouth of the Nishnebottona, to feed upon 

 this plant, no less than twenty were found dead at the end 

 of five days. May not the deleterious properties of the 

 equisetum hiemale depend, in some measure, on the frozen 

 water included in the cavity of the stalk? 



We were told the cows on this part of the Missouri, at 

 certain seasons of the year, give milk so deleterious, as to 

 prove fatal, when taken into the stomach ; and this effect is 

 commonly attributed to a poisonous plant, said to be fre- 

 quent in the low grounds, where it is eaten by the cattle. 

 They have a disease called the milk sickness; it commences 

 with nausea and dizziness, succeded by headache, pain in the 

 stomach and bowels, and finally, by a prostration of strength, 

 which renders the patient unable to stand ; a general torpor 

 soon ensues, succeeded by death. It is a common be- 

 lief that the flesh of animals, that have eaten of this poison- 

 ous weed, is noxious, and that horses are destroyed by it. 



We have heard it remarked by the inhabitants of the 

 Ohio below the rapids, that the milk of cows running at 

 large in August is poisonous ; and this they do not fail to at- 

 tribute to the effect of noxious plants, and in some places 

 they point out to you one, and in another place, another ve- 



* Miegia macrosperma of Persoon. 



