Rocky Mountains. S3 



getable, to which they assign these properties. The inhabi- 

 tants generally seem to have no suspicion that milk, unless it 

 is poisoned, can be an unwholesome article of diet, and we 

 have been often surprised to see it given to those labour- 

 ing under fever. Throughout the western states, and'particu- 

 larly in the more remote settlements, much use is made of 

 butter milk, and soured milk in various forms; all of which 

 they sell to travellers. Below Cote Sans Dessein we paid, 

 for new milk, twenty-five cents per gallon, and for soured 

 milk, eighteen and three-fourth cents. At that place twenty- 

 five cents per quart were demanded by the French settlers. 

 It is commonly remarked that the French, as well as the 

 Indians, who have been long in the immediate vicinity of 

 the whites, charge a much higher price for any article than 

 the Anglo-Americans, under the same circumstances. Emi- 

 grants from the Southern states prefer sour milk, and the 

 traveller's taste in this particular, we have often observed, 

 forms a test to discover whether he is entitled to the oppro- 

 brious name of Yankee, as the people of the northern and 

 eastern states rarely choose sour milk. We have found that 

 in some of the sickliest parts of the valley of the Mississippi, 

 where bilious and typhoid fevers prevail, through the sum- 

 mer and autumn, the most unrestrained use is made of but- 

 ter, milk, eggs, and similar articles of diet. Dr. Baldwin 

 was of opinion that the milk sickness of the Missouri, did 

 not originate from any deleterious vegetable substance eat- 

 en by the cows, but was a species of typhus, produced by 

 putrid exhalations, and perhaps aggravated by an incautious 

 use of a milk diet. 



During the few days we remained at Cote Sans Dessein, 

 Dr. Baldwin, though suffering much from weakness, and 

 yielding perceptibly to the progress of a fatal disease, was 

 able to make several excursions on shore. His devotion to a 

 fascinating pursuit, stimulated him to exertions for which 

 the strength of his wasted frame seemed wholly inadequate; 



