Rocky Mountains. 3SS 



tude, risirtg also in the same plains. The Konzas is naviga- 

 ble only in high freshets for boats of burden, and on such 

 occasions not more than one hundred and fifty or two hun- 

 dred miles, the navigation being obstructed by shoals. The 

 character of this river and its several branches is similar to 

 that of the Platte and its tributaries. Woodlands are seldom 

 to be met with, except in narrow skirts and small copses 

 along the water courses. Much of the country situated upon 

 its forks, is said to be possessed of a good soil, but is ren- 

 dered uninhabitable for want of timber and water. The bot- 

 toms are possessed of a light sandy soil, and the uplands are 

 in many places characterized by aridity and barrenness. The 

 surface, for the most part, is rolling, but in some instances 

 inclines to hilly. 



That portion of the Arkansa included within the section 

 under consideration, has a bed or channel varying in width 

 from four hundred yards to more than a mile, exclusive of 

 islands. In the neighbourhood of the mountains its width 

 does not exceed fifty or sixty yards, gradually growing wider 

 in its progress downward. Its valley, lor a distance of more 

 than one hundred miles from the place where it issues from 

 tile mountains, contains a considerable timber growth, prin- 

 cipally of cotton wood, in skirts bordering upon the river, 

 which occasionally embosoms islands clad in the same kind 

 of growth. Every appearance of timber, however, is lost on 

 a farther progress eastward, and nothing is presented to va- 

 riegate or adorn the prospect inland, but a broad expanse of 

 waving prairies. 



Proceeding eastward along the river, its valley gradually 

 widens, and the bluflPs or banks by which it is bounded, be- 

 come less elevated and abrupt. The bottoms rise but a few 

 feet above the water level of the river, but the freshets hav- 

 ing a broad bed like that of the Platte, to expand upon, sel- 

 dom rise so high as to inundate the bottoms. This part of 

 the Arkansa, as before hinted in the former part of this re- 

 port, cannot be considered as navigable except for boats of 

 light burden, during the prevalence of a freshet. In a very 

 low stage the river is said to disappear in many places, the 

 whole of its water passing off through the immense body of 

 sand of which its bed is composed. 



The Arkansa having a direction nearly east and west, has 

 no great variety of climate to traverse in its course from the 

 mountains to the Mississippi. Consequently there is no suc- 

 cesssion of thaws taking place upon the river, calculated to 



