THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 243 



red stone for his pipes. The surface of these bowlders are in ( very part entire and 

 nnsuratched by anything, wearing the moss everywhere unbroken, except where I 

 applied the hammer to obtain some small specimens, which I shall bring away with 

 me. 



The fact alone that these blocks differ in character from all other specimens which 

 I have seen in my travels amongst the thousands of bowlders which are strewed over 

 the great valley of the Missouri and Mississippi, from the Yellowstone almost to the 

 Gulf of Mexico, raises in my mind an unanswerable question as regards the location 

 of their native bed and the means by which they have reached their isolated posi- 

 tion; like live brothers, leaning against and supporting each other, without the ex- 

 istence of another bowlder within many miles of them. There are thousands and tens 

 of thousands of bowlders scattered over the prairies at the base of the C6teau on 

 either side, and so throughout the valley of the Saint Peter's and Mississippi, which are 

 also subjects of very great interest and importance to science, inasmuch as they 

 present to the world a vast variety of characters; and each one, though strayed away 

 from its original position, bears incontestible proof of the character of its native bed. 

 The tract of country lying between the Saint Peter's River and the Coteau, over which 

 Ave passed, presents innumerable specimens of this kind; and near the base of the 

 COteau they are strewed over the prairie -in countless numbers presenting an almost 

 incredible variety of rich and beautiful colors, and undoubtedly traceable (if they 

 can be traced) to separate and distinct beds. 



Amongst these beautiful groups it was sometimes a very easy matter to sit on my 

 horse and count within my sight some twenty or thirty different varieties of quartz 

 and granite, in rounded bowlders, of every hue and color, from snow white to intense 

 red, and yellow, and blue, and almost to a jet black; each one well characterized and 

 evidently from a distinct quarry. With the beautiful hin-s and almost endless char- 

 acters of these blocks I became completely surprised and charmed, and I resolved to 

 procure specimens of every variety, which I did with success by dismounting from 

 my hoise and breaking small bits from them with my hammer, until I had something 

 like a huiulred different varieties containing all the tints and colors of a painter's 

 palette. These I at length threw away, as I had on several former occasions other 

 minerals and fossils which I had collected and lugged along from day to day, and some- 

 times from week to week. 



Whether these varieties of quartz and granite cau all be traced to their native beds, 

 or whether they all have origins at this time exposed above the earth's surface, are 

 equally matters of much doubt in my mind. I believe that the geologist may take the 

 different varieties, which he may gather at the base of the C6teau in one hour, and 

 travel the continent of North America all over without being enabled to put them ail 

 in place ; coming at last to the unavoidable conclusion that numerous chains or beds 

 of primitive rocks have reared their heads on this continent, the summits of which 

 have been swept away by the force of diluvial currents, and their fragments jostled 

 together and strewed about, like foreigners in a strange land, over the great valleys 

 of the Mississippi and Missouri, where they will ever remain and be gazed upon by 

 the traveler as the only remaining evidence of their native beds which have again 

 submerged or been covered with diluvial deposits. 



There seems not to be, either on the C6teau or in the great valleys on either side, so 

 far as I have traveled, any slaty or other formation exposed above the surface on 

 which grooves or scratches can be seen to establish the direction of the diluvial cur- 

 rents in those regions ; yet I think the fact is pretty clearly established by the general 

 shapes of the valleys and the courses of the mountain ridges which wall them in on 

 their sides. 



The Cdteau des Prairies is the dividing ridge between the Saint Peter's and Missouri 

 Rivers ; its southern termination or slope is about in the latitude of the Fall of Saint 

 Anthony, audit stands equidistant between the two rivers; its general course being- 

 two or three degrees west of north for the distance of two or three hundred miles, 



