Rocky Mountains. 85 



with soil, usually a calcareous loam, intermixed with decayed 

 vegetable matter. 



July 6th. Soon after leaving the settlement of Cote Sans 

 Dessein we passed the upper and larger mouth of the Osage 

 River. Here, to use the language of the country, a town has 

 been located, and the lots lately disposed of at St. Louis at 

 various prices, from fifty to one hundred and eighty dollars 

 each. Within the limits of this town is a considerable hill, 

 rising at the point of the junction of the two rivers, and 

 running parallel to the Missouri. From its summit is an ex- 

 tensive view of the village of Cote Sans Dessein, and the 

 surrounding country. 



The river of the Osages, so called from the well known 

 tribe of Indians inhabiting its banks, enters the Missouri one 

 hundred and thirty-three miles above the confluence of the 

 latter river with the Mississippi. Its sources are in the 

 Ozark mountains opposite those of the White River of the 

 Mississippi, and of the Neosho, a tributary of the Arkansa. 

 Flowing along the base of the north-western slope of a 

 mountainous range, it receives from the east several rapid 

 and beautiful rivers, of which the largest is the Yungar, (so 

 named, in some Indian language, from the great number of 

 springs tributary to it,) entering the Osage one hundred and 

 forty miles from the Missouri. 



In point of magnitude the Osage ranks nearly with the 

 Cumberland and Tennessee. It has been represented as 

 navigable for six hundred miles, but as its current is known 

 to be rapid, flowing over great numbers of shoals and sand- 

 bars, this must be considered an exaggeration. In the lower 

 part of its course it traverses broad and fertile bottom lands, 

 bearing heavy forests of sycamore and cotton trees. We may 

 expect the country along the banks of this river will soon 

 become the seat of a numerous population, as it possesses in 



far less prominent on the edge of the shell. It may justly be named 

 grandis, as its binge width was more than 3 1-2 inches. 



