152 Expedition to the 



oes. Mr. D. was soon afterwards dispatched to the Paw- 

 nees, with instructions to demand of them, the property 

 plundered from Mr. Say's party, also to require that the 

 persons who had committed that outrage, should be given 

 up. He was accompanied by two Frenchmen acquainted 

 with the Pawnees and their language. 



A partv of Otoes arrived at Fort Lisa on the 26th Sep- 

 tember, with pack horses, laden with peltries, and bringing 

 with them a soldier, who, having been accidentally separa- 

 ted from a small detachment, that were driving some beeves 

 from Martin's Cantonment, towards Council Bluff, had 

 wandered about in the prairie for five days, without tasting 

 food, when he at last, had the good fortune to fall in with 

 the Otoes, who hospitably fed and conducted him to the 

 trading house. 



The Council Bluff, so called by Lewis and Clark, from a 

 council with the Otoes and lissourits held there, on the 3d 

 of August 1804, is a remarkable bank, rising abruptly from 

 the brink of the river, to an elevation of about one hundred 

 and. fifty feet. This is a most beautiful position, having two 

 important military features, security, and a complete com- 

 mand of the river. Its defects are a want of wood within a 

 convenient distance, there being little within a mile above, 

 and much farther below, also a want of stone and of water, ex- 

 cept that of the river. From the summits of the hills, about 

 one mile in the rear of the Bluff, is presented the view of a 

 most extensive and beautiful landscape. The bluffs on the 

 east side of the river, exhibit a chain of peaks stretching as 



tre itself, and of course the shell was destitute of the solid nucleus as in 

 Melonis. Lamarck. It has about four volutions. We have named this 

 species, which is, notwithstanding the difference of the central portion, of 

 the same genus with the preceding, Milioliles lentrnl's Say. As in the 

 preceding, it is entirely filled solidly with carbonate of lime, and this 

 substance being of a greater purity in the filled up cavities of the fossil, 

 than in the mass, its interior divisions are very obvious. 



The latter species, we observed about one hundred miles up the Kon- 

 zas river, where it forms the chief body of ihe rocks in extensive ranges. 

 It seems to be a carbonate of lime containing iron. 



