THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 241 



There is not a tree or bush to ho seen from the highest summit of the ridge, though 

 the eye may range east and west almost to a boundless extent, over a surface covered 

 with a short grass, that is green at one's feet and about him, but changing to blue in 

 distance, like nothing but the blue and vastness of the ocean. 



The whole surface of this immense tract of country is hard and smooth, almost 

 without stone or gravel, and coated with a green turf of grass of th re e or four inches 

 only in height. Over this the wheels of a carriage would run as easily, for hundreds 

 of miles, as they could on a macadamized road, and its graceful gradations would in 

 all parts admit of a horse to gallop with ease to himself and his rider. 



The full extent and true character of these vast prairies are but imperfectly under- 

 stood by the world yet, who will agree with me that the}' arc a subject truly sublime, 

 for contemplation when I assure them that "a coach and four" might be driven with 

 ease (with the exception of rivers and ravines, which are in many places impassable), 

 over unceasing fields of green, from the Fall of Saint Anthony to Lord Selkirk's es- 

 tablishment ou the Red River, at the north ; from that to the mouth of Yellowstone 

 on the Missouri, thence to the Platte, to the Arkansas and Red Rivers of the south, 

 and through Texas to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of more than three thousand 

 miles. — G. C. 



JOURNEY TO RED PIPESTONE QUARRY. 



From the Fall of Saint Anthony, my delightful companion (Mr. Wood, whom I 

 have before mentioned) and myself, with our Indian guide, whose name was O-kup- 

 pee, tracing the beautiful shores of the Saint Peter's River, about eighty miles; cross- 

 ing it at a place called "Traverse des Sioux," and recrossing it at another point about 

 thirty miles above the mouth of "Terre Bleue," from whence we steered in a direction 

 a little north of west for the u Coteau des Prairies," leaving the Saint Peter's River, 

 and crossing one of the most beautiful prairie countries in the world, for the distance 

 of one hundred and twenty or one hundred and thirty miles, which brought us to the 

 base of the Coteau, where we were joined by our kind and esteemed companion Mon- 

 sieur La Fromboise, as I have, before related. This tract of country as well as that 

 along the Saint Peter's River, is mostly covered with the richest soil, and furnishes 

 an abundance of good water, which flows from a thousand living springs. For many 

 miles we had the Coteau in view in the distance before us, which looked like a blue 

 cloud settling down in the horizon; and we were scarcely sensible of the fact when 

 we had arrived at its base, from the graceful and almost imperceptible swells with 

 which it commences its elevation above the country around it. Over these swells or 

 terraces gently rising one above the other, we traveled for the distance of forty or 

 fifty miles, when we at length reached the summit ; and from the base of this mound 

 to its top, a distance of forty or fifty miles, there was not a tree or bush to be seen 

 in any direction, and the ground everywhere was covered with a green turf of grass, 

 about five or six iuches high; and we were assured by our Indian guide that it de- 

 scended to the west, towards the Missouri with a similar inclination and for an equal 

 distance, divested of everything save the grass that grows and the animals that walk 

 upon it. 



On the very top of this mound or ridge we found the far-famed quarry or fount- 

 ain ^of the red pipe, which is truly an anomaly in nature. The principal and most 

 striking feature of this place, is a perpendicular wall of close-grained compact quartz, 

 of twenty-five and thirty feet in elevation, running nearly north and south with 

 its face to the west, exhibiting a front of nearly two miles in length, when it dis- 

 appears at both ends by running under the prairie, which becomes there a little more 

 elevated, and probably covers it for many miles, both to the north and the south. The 

 depression of the brow of the ridge at this place has been eaused by the wash of a 

 little stream, produced by several springs on the top, a little back from the wall, 

 which has graduallv carried away the superincumbent earth and having bared the 

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