80 Expedition to the 



a fertile soil and a mild climate, advantages more than suf- 

 ficient to compensate for the difficulty of access, and other 

 inconveniencies of situation. 



The northern bank of the Missouri, for some distance 

 above the confluence of the Osage, is hilly. Moreau's Creek 

 enters three miles above, and at its mouth is Cedar Island, 

 where we anchored for the night. This island is three miles 

 long, and has furnished much cedar timber for the settle- 

 ments below ; but its supply is now nearly exhausted. 



In the afternoon of the following day we were entangled 

 among great numbers of snags and planters, and had a cat 

 head carried away by one of them. In shutting off the steam 

 on this occasion, one of the valves was displaced, and as we 

 were no longer able to confine the steam, the engine became 

 useless, the boat being thus exposed to imminent danger. 

 At length we succeeded in extricating ourselves, and came 

 to an anchor near the entrance of a small stream, called Mast 

 Creek by Lewis and Clark. 



At evening dense cumulostratus and cirrostratus clouds 

 skirted the horizon: above these we observed a comet bear- 

 ing north-west by north. Above the mouth of the Osage, the 

 immediate valley of the Missouri gradually expands, em- 

 bracing some wide bottoms, in which are many settlements 

 increasing rapidly in the number of inhabitants. The Manito 

 rocks, and some other precipitous cliffs, are the terminations 

 of low ranges of hills running in, quite to the river. These 

 hills sometimes occasion rapids in the river, as in the in- 

 stance of the Manito rocks, opposite which commences a 

 group of small islands stretching obliquely across the Mis- 

 souri, and separated by narrow channels, in which the cur- 

 rent is stronger than below. Some of these channels we found 

 obstructed by collections of floating trees, which usually ac- 

 cumulate about the heads of islands, and are here called 

 rafts. After increasing to a certain extent, portions of these 

 rafts, becoming loosened, float down the river, sometimes 



