132 Expedition to the 



moved slowly off to right and left, leaving a lane for the par- 

 ty to pass; but those on the windward side often lingered 

 for a long time almost within the reach of our rifles, regard- 

 ing us with little appearance of alarm. We had now noth- 

 ing to suffer, either from the apprehension or the reality of 

 hunger, and could have been content that the distance be- 

 tween ourselves and the settlements should have been much 

 greater than we supposed it to be. 



In the afternoon, finding the course of the river again 

 bending towards the north, and becoming more and more 

 serpentine, we turned off on the right side, and choosing 

 an east course, travelled across the hills, not doubting but we 

 would soon arrive again at the river. We found the country, 

 at a distance from the bed of the river, somewhat elevated 

 and broken; but, upon climbing some of the highest hills, 

 we again saw the landscape of the unbounded and unvaried 

 grassy plain spread out before us. All the inequalities of the 

 surface have evidently been produced by the excavating 

 operation of currents of water, and they are consequently 

 most considerable near the channels of the large streams. 

 This remark is applicable to the vallies of all the large rivers 

 in the central portions of the great horizontal formation 

 west of the AUeganies. We find, accordingly, that on the 

 Ohio, the Missouri, the Plactc, the Konzas, and many of 

 the rivers tributary to the Mississippi, the surface becomes 

 broken in proportion as we proceed from the interior towards 

 the bed of the river; and all the hills bear convincing evidence 

 that they have received their existence and their form from the 

 action of the currents of water, which have removed the soil 

 and other matters formerly occupying the vallies, and elevating 

 the whole surface of the country nearly to a common level. 

 Regarding in this view the extensive vallies of the Missis- 

 sippi, and its tributaries, we naturally inquire how great a 

 length of time must have been spent in the production of 

 such an effect, the cause operating as it now does? It is 



