324 Expedition to the 



and would undoubtedly afford a valuable marble, not unlike 

 the Darling marble quarried on the Hudson. 



The streets of Cape Girardeau are marked out, with for- 

 mal regularity, intersecting each other at right angles, but 

 they are now in some parts so gullied and torn by the rains 

 as to be impassable, in others, overgrown with such a crop 

 of gigantic vernonias and urticas, as to resemble small fo- 

 rests. The country back of the town is hilly, covered with 

 heavy forests of oak, tulip tree, and nyssa, intermixed in the 

 vallies with the sugar tree, and the fagus sylvatica, and on 

 the hills with an undergrowth of the American hazle, and 

 the shot bush or angelica tree. Settlements are considerately 

 advanced, and many well cultivated farms occur in various 

 directions. 



Two or three weeks elapsed previous to Major Long's 

 return from St. Louis, when, notwithstanding his ill health, 

 he left Cape Girardeau immediately, as did Capt. Bell, both 

 intending to prosecute without delay, their journey to the 

 seat of government. 



About the first of November, Messrs. Say, Graham, and 

 Seymour, had so far recovered their health, as to venture on 

 a voyage to New Orleans, on their way home. They left 

 Cape Girardeau in a small boat, which they exchanged at 

 the mouth of the Ohio for a steam boat, about to descend. 

 Mr. Peale, who had escaped the prevailing sickness, accom- 

 panied them. On his way down the Mississippi, Mr. Say 

 observed the new animal described in the subjoined note.* 



* Genus Sdncus, Daud. 



S. lateralis. Say. Light brown above; a lateral blackish line; about 

 six srales behind the head wider than the others. 



Body above light brownish, with small black spots or abbreviated lines, 

 sides with a dilated black vitta which commences at the nostril, passes 

 through the eyes, is varied with pale spots and abbreviated longitudinal 

 lines, is paler towards its inferior edge and obsolete behind; scales smooth; 

 tail, longer than ihe body, with very numerous, obsolete, small longitudi- 

 nal spots; superior and inferior series of scales beyond the middle trans. 

 Tersely widened into plates; head with the rostrum rather short; im- 

 mediately behind the plates of the head are about six scales larger than 



