142 Expedition to the 



its place. Several of the men amused themselves by hunt- 

 ing and fishing. We had now a plentiful supply of game, 

 and many large catfish were taken, some of them weighing 

 more than fifty pounds. 



We passed in succession the mouths of the Nishnebottona, 

 and the Little Nemahaw, and arrived on the 7th at the 

 Grand Pass. Here the Nishnebottona, a beautiful river about 

 sixty yards wide, approaches within one hundred and fifty 

 yo. Is of the Missouri, being separated from it by a sandy 

 prairie, rising scarcely twenty feet above the surface of the 

 water. After pursuing for a short distance a parallel course, 

 the two rivers diverge, and the Nishnebottona meanders 

 along the side of the Missouri valley, about sixty miles, to 

 its confluence with the latter river. From this point is a pleas- 

 ing view of the hills called the Bald Pated Prairie, stretching 

 along the north-eastern side of the Nishnebottona, and di- 

 minished to the size of ant-hills in the distant perspective. 

 Here the navigation is much obstructed by sandbars, and the 

 ordinary current of the Missouri, according to the state- 

 ment of Lewis and Clark, corroborated by our observation, 

 is something more than one fathom per second.* In many 

 places the Missouri hurries across concealed sandbars and 

 other obstructions, with the velocity of seven, eight or even 

 twelve feet in a second, f Between these obstructions, the 

 channel becomes deeper, and the current more moderate; 

 consequently the aggregate velocity at times of low water 

 may be reckoned something less than six feet to the second. 

 As the volume of water is increased by the heavy rains, and 



* Lewis and Clark, p. 28. vol. i. 



•f- This velocity of current is equalled by that of the Cassiquiare in 

 South America, and probably surpassed by the Oronoko, the averag-e de- 

 scent of whose bed is thirteen inches to the mile of 950 toises, (6 feet.4. 

 376 inches per toise.) See Humb. Pers. Nar. vol. 5, p. 637, and vol. 4, 

 p. 452. La Condamine and major Rennel suppose the mean descent of 

 the Amazon and the Ganges, scarce four or fivr inches to the mile, which 

 is about equal to that of the Mississippi, according to the most satisfactory 

 estimates we have been able to make. 



