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IOWA ACADEMY OP SCIENCE 
It is evident that Long’s party found the river and bluff at Council Bluff 
much as Lewis and Clark had described them. Long’s map shows the great 
bend of the Missouri near Council Bluff, evidently -about as it had appeared 
thirteen years before, and it also clearly shows the relative position of Boyer’s 
River (so named on the map), Engineer Cantonment and Council Bluff. 
The great bend of the Missouri river was still in existence in 1839 when 
Nicollet visited Council Bluff, and his map, compiled by Lieut. W. H. Emory,* 
shows the same relative position of Boyer River, Engineer Cantonment and 
Council Bluff as that indicated on Long’s map. A great change, however, took 
place soon after as is shown by Nicollet’s report, which, it should be remem- 
bered, was prepared two years after his observations at Council Bluffs were 
made, and was not published until two more years had elapsed. Referring to 
the unstable character of the Missouri channel he says (p. 22): “Thus we 
could not recognize many of the bends described by Lewis and Clarke; and 
most probably those determined by us in 1839, and laid down upon my map, 
will ere long have disappeared; such is the unsettled course of the river. 
Already have I been informed, in fact, that the great bend opposite Council 
Bluffs has disappeared since our visit; and that the Missouri, which then 
flowed at the foot of the bluff, is now further removed by several miles to 
the east of it.” The extent of this change is indicated on the map of Harrison 
county, Iowa, published in the Reports of the Iowa Geological Survey, opposite 
p. 380, in vol. XX, 1910. In this map the writer published the results of the 
Lewis and Clark survey, 1804, the U. S. survey, 1853, and the Wattles survey, 
1898. Council Bluff was a little south of the south line of Harrison county, 
and on the opposite side of the Missouri river. If the change reported by 
Nicollet brought the river to the position indicated by the U. S. survey of 
1853, which is not materially different at this point from that shown by the 
Wattles survey of 1898, the shift eastward amounted to nearly five miles.** 
The foregoing facts make it clear that the name Council Bluff was applied to 
the same locality by Lewis and Clark, Long and Nicollet, and that this locality 
is situated on the Nebraska side of the Missouri river more than 20 miles above 
the city of Council Bluffs, Iowa. The evidence is especially clear so far as it 
concerns the location of the Council Bluff of Say and Nicollet, and this is of 
greatest interest to students of distribution, for the reports of Say and Nicollet 
contain many references to this locality. 
The term Council Bluffs was probably first publicly applied, at least in 
scientific literature, to hills on the Iowa side by D. D. Owen,*** who refers to 
“Council Bluffs” on p. 132 of the Report, and marks the hills on the Iowa 
side, which extend from opposite the mouth of the Platte to northwestern 
Missouri, as “Council Bluffs.” 
*This map accompanies the report intended to illustrate A Map of the Hydrographic 
Basin of the Upper Mississippi River. — I.N. Nicollet. — 1843. Submitted Feb. 16, 1841. 
Published as a Senat Document, 26th Congress, 2nd Session. 
**The old channel of the Missouri, indicated by dotted lines on the map of Pot- 
tawattamie county opposite p, 266 in vol. XI, Iowa Geological Survey, 1901, was 
probably determined by the U. S. survey of 1853, though the report does not state 
this. Pottawattamie county lies just south of Harrison county. 
***Report of a geological survey of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, etc., 1852. Also 
map in “Illustrations” in same — the one marked “Sections on the Missouri. River from 
no. 20 M., to no. 40 M.” , 
