ISO Expedition to the 



scattered about the surface, sometimes included in larger 

 masses of the common amorphous plaister stone. This last 

 IS usually of a colour approaching to white, but the exposed 

 surfaces are more or less tinged with the colouring matter 

 of the sand-rock, and all the varieties are so soft as to dis- 

 integrate rapidly, when exposed to the air. Recent surfaces 

 show no ferruginous tinge, in other words, this colour dees 

 not appear to have been contemporaneous to the formation 

 of the sulphate of lime, but derived from the cement of the 

 sandstone, and to have penetrated no farther than it has 

 been carried by the infiltration of water. 



We left our encampment at five o'clockj the morning fair; 

 thermometer at 62*'. Our courses, regulated entirely by 

 the direction of the river, were north, fifty-five east, eleven 

 miles, then north, ten east, seven miles, in all eighteen miles 

 before dinner.* The average direction of our course, for 

 some days, had been rather to the north than south of east. 

 This fact did not coincide with our previous ideas of the 

 direction of Red River, and much less of the Faux Ouachit- 

 ta or False Washita, which, being the largest of the upper 

 branches of Red River from the north, we believed might 

 be the stream we were descending. From observations ta- 

 ken at several points along the river we had ascertained that 

 we must travel three or four days' journey to the south, in 

 order to arrive at the parallel of the confluence of the Kia- 

 mesha with the Red river,f and we were constantly expect- 

 ing a change in the direction of our courses. The confident 

 assurance of the Kaskaias, that we were on Red River, and 

 but a few days' march above the village of the Pawnee Pi- 

 quas, tended to quiet the suspicions we began to feel on this 

 subject. We had now travelled, since meeting the Indians, 

 a greater distance than we could suppose they had intended 



* The mafjnetic variation was here from 12° to 13° east. 

 I The latitude of this point was ascertained by Major Long, io Decem- 

 ber, 1819, to be a few minutes below 34'' north. 



