James's Account of S. H. Long's Expedition, 1819-1820, part 1
by Edwin James · English · Gutenberg #43751 · 617,115 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of James's Account of S. H. Long's Expedition, 1819-1820, part 1
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: James's Account of S. H. Long's Expedition, 1819-1820, part 1
Author: Edwin James
Stephen H. Long
Thomas Say
Editor: Reuben Gold Thwaites
Release date: September 16, 2013 [eBook #43751]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43751
Credits: E-text prepared by E-text prepared by Richard W, Greg Bergquist, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (http://archive.org/details/americana)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JAMES'S ACCOUNT OF S. H. LONG'S EXPEDITION, 1819-1820, PART 1 ***
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 43751-h.htm or 43751-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/43751/pg43751-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43751/43751-h.zip)
Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
http://archive.org/details/earlywesterntrav14thwa
Transcriber's note:
This ebook reproduces the 1905 Arthur H. Clark Company
Edition, which is itself based on an 1823 London edition
of Part I of James's Account of S. H. Long's Expedition.
The 1905 edition incorporated portions from several
differing published editions of the account, plus a map
which does not appear to have been directly related to
James's account. The original pagination of the 1823
London edition was included in the 1905 edition, and is
shown in this ebook by numbers enclosed in brackets,
e.g. {135}.
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Small capitals have been converted to uppercase.
A carat character is used to denote superscription. The
character(s) enclosed in curly brackets following the
carat is/are superscripted (examples: Pub^{d}, C^{o.}).
Further details of this transcription are located at the
end of this e-book.
EARLY WESTERN TRAVELS
1748-1846
VOLUME XIV
EARLY WESTERN TRAVELS
1748-1846
A Series of Annotated Reprints of some of the best
and rarest contemporary volumes of travel,
descriptive of the Aborigines and Social and
Economic Conditions in the Middle
and Far West, during the Period
of Early American Settlement
Edited with Notes, Introductions, Index, etc., by
Reuben Gold Thwaites, LL.D.
Editor of "The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents,"
"Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition,"
"Hennepin's New Discovery," etc.
Volume XIV
Part I of James's Account of S. H. Long's Expedition,
1819-1820
Cleveland, Ohio
The Arthur H. Clark Company
1905
Copyright 1905, by
The Arthur H. Clark Company
All Rights Reserved
The Lakeside Press
R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company
Chicago
CONTENTS OF VOLUME XIV
PREFACE TO VOLUMES XIV-XVII. _The Editor_ 9
ACCOUNT OF AN EXPEDITION FROM PITTSBURGH TO THE
ROCKY MOUNTAINS, PERFORMED IN THE YEARS 1819, 1820.
By order of the Hon. J. C. Calhoun, Secretary of
War, under the command of Maj. S. H. Long, of the
U. S. Top. Engineers. Compiled from the Notes of
Major Long, Mr. T. Say, and other Gentlemen of the
Party. [Part I, being chapters i-x of Volume I of
the London edition, 1823.] _Edwin James_, Botanist
and Geologist to the Expedition
Dedication 33
Preliminary Notice [from Philadelphia edition,
1823] 35
Text:
CHAPTER I--Departure from Pittsburgh.
North-western slope of Alleghany Mountains.
Rapids of the Ohio 39
CHAPTER II--The Ohio below the Rapids at
Louisville. Ascent of the Mississippi from
the mouth of the Ohio to St. Louis 77
CHAPTER III--Tumuli and Indian graves about
St. Louis, and on the Merameg. Mouth of the
Missouri. Charboniere. Journey by land from
St. Charles to Loutre Island 108
CHAPTER IV--Settlement of Cote Sans Dessein.
Mouths of the Osage. Manito Rocks. Village
of Franklin 136
CHAPTER V--Death of Dr. Baldwin. Charaton
River, and Settlement. Pedestrian Journey
from Franklin to Fort Osage 153
CHAPTER VI--Mouth of the Konzas. Arrival at
Wolf River. Journey by land from Fort Osage
to the Village of the Konzas 171
CHAPTER VII--Further Account of the Konza
Nation. Robbery of Mr. Say's Detachment by a
War-party of Pawnees. Arrival at the Platte 199
CHAPTER VIII--Winter Cantonment near Council
Bluff. Councils with the Otoes, Missouries,
Ioways, Pawnees, &c. 221
CHAPTER IX--Animals. Sioux and Omawhaw
Indians. Winter Residence at Engineer
Cantonment 250
CHAPTER X--Account of the Omawhaws. Their
Manners, and Customs, and Religious Rites.
Historical Notices of Black Bird, Late
Principal Chief 288
ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME XIV
"Map of the Country drained by the Mississippi" 30
Facsimile of title-page to Volume I of James's
_Account_ 31
"Indian Record of a Battle between the Pawnees
and the Konzas--a Fac-Simile of a Delineation
upon a Bison Robe" 202
"War Dance in the interior of a Konza Lodge" 208
"Oto Council" 238
"Pawnee Council" 246
PREFACE TO VOLUMES XIV-XVII
The present volume and the three which succeed it are devoted to a
reprint of Edwin James's _Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh
to the Rocky Mountains, performed in the Years 1819, 1820, . . .
under the Command of Maj. S. H. Long_. This exploration was the
outcome, and almost the only valuable result, of the ill-starred
project popularly known at the time as the Yellowstone expedition,
which had been designed to establish military posts on the upper
Missouri for the several purposes of protecting the growing
fur-trade, controlling the Indian tribes, and lessening the
influence which British trading companies were believed to exert
upon them.[1] The movement gave rise to great expectations, for
interest in our Western territories was already keen; it was
confidently hoped that an era of rapid development was about to
open in the trans-Mississippi region, under government initiative
and protection.[2]
As originally planned, the scientific observations of the
expedition were to be conducted by a company of specialists under
the command of Major Long, to whom detailed instructions were
issued by Secretary of War Calhoun.[3] The military branch, under
Colonel Henry Atkinson,[4] was set in motion in the autumn of
1818, and a considerable body of troops passed the following
winter near the present site of Leavenworth, Kansas. In the spring
of 1819, however, defects in the plans began to hamper the
execution of the enterprise. Those were the early days of steam
navigation, and the waters of the Missouri had not yet been
stirred by paddle-wheels. Prudence counselled that the success of
the movement should not be staked on the behavior of steamboats in
untried waters. Nevertheless, the authorities decided against the
old-fashioned keel-boats recommended by Atkinson;[5] in arranging
for transportation, a further blunder was made in engaging a
contractor without competition or adequate securities. The service
proved entirely inefficient, and it was not until late in
September of 1819 that the troops were concentrated at Council
Bluffs, where, perforce, a halt was made for the winter.
The scientific members of the expedition had meanwhile assembled
at Pittsburg, and on May 5, 1819, they began the descent of the
Ohio in the steamer "Western Engineer."[6] Stephen Harriman Long,
the chief of this party, was born at Hopkinton, New Hampshire, in
1764. After being graduated at Dartmouth (1809), and teaching for
a few years, he entered the army (1814) as lieutenant in the corps
of engineers. Until 1816 he was assistant professor of mathematics
at West Point, being then transferred to the topographical
engineers, with the brevet rank of major. Previous to the
exploration which forms the subject of our text, he travelled
extensively in the South-west, between the Arkansas and Red
rivers, and his journals, although never published, ranked among
the most useful sources of information for that region. Major
Long's associates in the present undertaking were Major John
Biddle, journalist of the party; Dr. William Baldwin, physician
and botanist; Dr. Thomas Say, zoologist; Augustus Edward Jessup,
geologist; T. R. Peale, assistant naturalist; Samuel Seymour,
painter; and Lieutenant James D. Graham and Cadet William H.
Swift, assistant topographers.[7]
The "Western Engineer" arrived at St. Louis on the ninth of June,
and proceeded again on the twenty-first, after the party had
completed certain arrangements for their journey and examined the
Indian mounds in the vicinity. The voyage up the Missouri was
begun on the twenty-second, being marked by no more important
incident than an occasional halt to repair the machinery or clean
the boiler. Notwithstanding it drew but nineteen inches of water,
the boat grounded twice on sand-bars within four miles of the
Mississippi; but on the whole, it worked fairly well and gave
comparatively little annoyance. At St. Charles, on June 27, the
party was joined by Benjamin O'Fallon, agent for Indian affairs,
and John Dougherty, his interpreter. Here Messrs. Say, Jessup,
Peale, and Seymour left the boat and made a land excursion,
rejoining the party at Loutre Island. At Franklin, then the
uppermost town of any importance on the Missouri, a halt of
several days was made; here Dr. Baldwin, who had been ill since
the departure from Pittsburg, was left behind, his death occurring
on the thirty-first of August. From Franklin a party under Dr. Say
proceeded by land to Fort Osage, where they arrived on July 24, a
week in advance of the boat. On the sixth of August Dr. Say left
Fort Osage in command of a party bound for the principal village
of the Kansa Indians, then situated near the site of the present
village of Manhattan, Kansas. Arriving there on the twentieth,
they were hospitably entertained for four days; but after their
departure were set upon and robbed by a war party of Pawnee
braves, and consequently forced to abandon further progress by
land and return to the boat.
Meantime the steamer had left Fort Osage on August 10, and eight
days later arrived at Cow Island, near Leavenworth, where a
portion of the troops of the Yellowstone expedition had wintered.
Here another week was spent in a council with the Kansa Indians.
On the twenty-ninth of August, Say and his companions arrived at
Cow Island, four days after the departure of the boat; both Say
and Jessup were ill, and the party had decided to return to the
river at that point instead of attempting the longer journey to
Council Bluffs, the appointed rendezvous. The others succeeded in
overtaking the steamer, the invalids remaining for a time at Cow
Island.
Near the quarters of the troops at Council Bluffs (Camp Missouri),
Long's party also halted, on September 17, and prepared a winter
camp, named "Engineer Cantonment." Here Long left his companions,
and, accompanied by Jessup, returned to the East for the winter.
His colleagues at the cantonment pursued such studies as were
possible in the winter season, collecting much valuable
information relative to the neighboring tribes of Pawnee, Oto,
Iowa, Missouri, and Omaha Indians, and making short excursions
which gave them some knowledge of the geology and natural history
of the vicinity.
Long returned to the West in the spring of 1820. Leaving St. Louis
on April 24, he crossed the intervening wilderness to Council
Bluffs by land, arriving at Engineer Cantonment on May 28. With
him came Captain J. R. Bell, to replace Major Biddle, also the
author of the account herewith reprinted; the latter assumed the
duties which had originally been assigned to Baldwin and Jessup.
Edwin James was born at Weybridge, Vermont, in 1797, and after
graduation at Middlebury College (1816) pursued the study of
medicine under a brother, Daniel James, who was a practising
physician of Albany, New York. At the same time he prosecuted
studies in botany and geology under Dr. John Torrey and Professor
Amos Eaton, joining the expedition in 1820 fresh from the tutelage
of these men.
Long was also the bearer of fresh instructions. Congress, annoyed
at the first season's operations, the results of which had been
out of all proportion to the heavy expenditures, had refused
further appropriations, and the progress of the Yellowstone
expedition was necessarily arrested. Long's party, however, with
the exception of Lieutenant Graham, who with the steamboat was
assigned to special duty on the Missouri and Mississippi, was to
ascend the Platte to its source, and return to the Mississippi by
way of the Arkansas and the Red.
The company as now organized, in addition to the scientific
gentlemen already named, included Dougherty and four other men to
serve as interpreters, baggage handlers, and the like, and a
detachment of seven soldiers from the troops at Camp Missouri--a
total of twenty. Leaving the Missouri on June 6, the expedition
visited the Pawnee villages on Loup River, where two Frenchmen
were engaged as guides and interpreters. An effort was made to
introduce the process of vaccination among the Pawnee, who, in
common with other tribes, had suffered heavily from the ravages of
smallpox; but the vaccine having been thoroughly drenched by the
wreck of one of the keel-boats of the Yellowstone expedition, the
attempt was unsuccessful. After two days at the villages, progress
was resumed on the thirteenth, and from this time until the
mountains were reached, little was encountered to excite interest,
save herds of buffalo and the mirage. From near Grand Island the
company followed the north bank of the Platte, until they reached
the forks, where they crossed to the south bank of the South Fork.
On the thirtieth the Rockies were first sighted--their route along
the Platte having borne directly towards the mountain which has
since received Long's name, and which was, at first, mistaken for
Pike's Peak. The fourth of July, which they had hoped to celebrate
in the mountains, found them still at some distance from them; on
the fifth they encamped upon the site of the present city of
Denver, and the following day directly in front of the chasm
through which issues the South Platte. Here two days were passed
while James and Peale, with two companions, sought to cross the
first range and gain the valley of the Platte beyond; but after
surmounting several ridges, each of which appeared to be the
summit, only to find higher land beyond, the undertaking was
abandoned. They did reach, however, an elevated point from which
they could distinguish the two forks of the South Platte.
A few days later, members of the expedition performed a more
memorable exploit. On the twelfth of July, the camp then being
a few miles south of the site of Colorado Springs, James set
out with two men, and two days later succeeded in reaching the
summit of Pike's Peak, being, so far as history records, the
first to accomplish this feat. In honor of the achievement,
Major Long christened the mountain James's Peak; but by force
of local usage, the present name supplanted this appropriate
designation. Lieutenant Swift had meanwhile quite accurately
calculated the height of the peak above the basal plains, although
an erroneous estimate of the elevation of the latter produced an
error of nearly three thousand feet in the determination for the
elevation of the summit above sea level. Here, as elsewhere, the
observations for longitude and latitude involved a considerable
error.
On the sixteenth the party again broke camp, and moved southwest
to the Arkansas, which they reached twelve or fifteen miles above
the present city of Pueblo. The following day Captain Bell, Dr.
James, and two of the men ascended the river to the site of Cañon
City, at the entrance of Royal Gorge, where they turned back,
again baffled by what seemed to them impassable barriers.
The expedition began the descent of the Arkansas on the
nineteenth. After two days' march a camp was made a few miles
above the future site of La Junta, Colorado; here a division
into two parties was effected, for the purpose of carrying out
the instructions of the War Department to explore the courses
of both the Arkansas and the Red. The division assigned to the
exploration of Red River, consisting of James, Peale, and seven
men, was commanded by Major Long himself, for this was one of the
principal objects of the expedition; the other division, charged
with the less important task of descending the Arkansas, the
entire course of which had already been examined by Pike and his
assistants, was led by Captain Bell.
Leaving the Arkansas on the twenty-fourth, Long's party crossed
Purgatory Creek and the upper waters of Cimarron River, and after
six days reached a small tributary of Canadian River, which, after
five days' still further travel, brought them to the latter near
the present Texas-New Mexico boundary line. As the region in which
they had encountered the waters of the Canadian was that wherein
the sources of the Red had, previous to that time, been
universally supposed to lie, they naturally at first believed that
they were upon the latter stream. Their suspicions were soon
aroused by the deviation of the river's course from that which
they expected the Red to pursue; but it was not until they arrived
at the confluence of this waterway with the Arkansas that they
became certain of their error. During their descent of the
Canadian they encountered parties of Kaskaia and Comanche Indians,
whose conduct was not uniformly friendly. Few incidents of
interest, however, broke the painful monotony of a journey
accompanied by almost constant suffering from exposure to violent
storms and intense heat, lack of food and water, and the attacks
of wood ticks. On the thirteenth of September the explorers
arrived at Fort Smith, the appointed rendezvous, where they found
Bell's party awaiting them.
The experience of the Arkansas division had, in most particulars,
been quite similar to that of Long's, but on the whole less
vexatious. The chief event, however, involved an irreparable loss
to the expedition. This was the desertion, on the night of the
thirtieth of August, of three soldiers, who wantonly took with
them all the manuscripts completed by Dr. Say and Lieutenant Swift
since leaving the Missouri. The stolen books contained notes on
the manners, habits, history, and languages of the Indians, and on
the animals which had been examined, a journal of the expedition,
and a mass of topographical data. During part of the journey,
Bell's party was even more astray than Long's. Soon after passing
the Great Bend of the Arkansas, they mistook the Nennescah River
for the Negracka, or Salt Fork of the Arkansas; similar errors
added to their bewilderment, and for some time they were unaware
whether they were near Fort Smith or still far distant--until, on
the first of September, they met friendly Osage Indians near
Verdigris River. They reached Fort Smith on the ninth.
From Fort Smith the reunited party followed the Arkansas to the
Cherokee towns on Illinois Creek, in Pope County, Arkansas, whence
they proceeded overland directly to Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
James and Swift, parting from their companions at the Cherokee
towns, visited the Arkansas Hot Springs, now a famous health
resort, and returning to the Arkansas at Little Rock, also crossed
the country to Cape Girardeau, where all members of the expedition
were assembled on October 12. Here nearly all of the party were
attacked by intermittent fever.
Two or three weeks later, the expedition being now disbanded,
Major Long and Captain Bell set out for Washington, leaving their
colleagues to act according to their own pleasure. About the first
of November, Messrs. Say, Seymour, and Peale departed by
steamboat, intending to return home by way of New Orleans. They
were accompanied by Lieutenant Graham, who, on completion of the
special duties assigned to him at Engineer Cantonment, had met the
exploring party at Cape Girardeau with the "Western Engineer."
Lieutenant Swift and Dr. James essayed to ascend the Ohio to
Louisville with the vessel; but at Golconda, Illinois, James
experienced a recurrence of fever, which for some time prevented
his proceeding farther, while Swift, leaving the boat at
Smithland, Kentucky, continued his journey on horseback.
James's _Account_ is the only narrative of the expedition, and his
connection with the party gives his work the authority of an
official report. Moreover, he not only had access to the notes of
his associates, but received much personal assistance, especially
from Long and Say. The original edition was published at
Philadelphia in 1823, by Carey and Lea; it consisted of two
volumes of 503 and 442 pages respectively, containing James's
narrative, with appendices giving a catalogue of animals observed
at Engineer Cantonment, the Indian sign language, Indian speeches
at the councils held by Major O'Fallon, astronomical and
meteorological records, and vocabularies of Indian languages,
especially those of the Oto, Kansa, Omaha, Sioux, Minitaree, and
Pawnee tribes. Extracts from Major Long's report to the secretary
of war, dated January 20, 1821, and from the report made by his
assistants to Long on the mineralogy and geology of the region
explored, were incorporated in the second volume. A third volume
contained the maps and plates, and the edition was provided with a
brief index and "Preliminary Notice."
The same year another edition was published in London, by Longman,
Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown. This edition, the one selected by us
for reprinting, was in three volumes, and contained the text
essentially as printed in the Philadelphia edition.[8] In the
arrangement of notes, however, a different plan was adopted; in
the Philadelphia issue, all annotation was given at the foot of
the appropriate pages, while in the London edition the notes for
each volume were grouped in the back of the book. In the present
reprint the former plan is followed. The Preliminary Notice found
in the Philadelphia edition was omitted from the London version,
but is supplied in the present reprint. The appendices giving
astronomical and meteorological data and Indian vocabularies,
which were omitted from the London edition, are also included in
our reprint. Finally, instead of the atlas which accompanied the
Philadelphia edition, selected illustrations, including a map of
the region explored, were incorporated with the text in the
various volumes of the London print.
In certain ways the results of the expedition were disappointing,
even to those persons whose expectations were far less extravagant
than the Missourian who had declared that "ten years shall not
pass away before we shall have the rich productions of [China]
transported from Canton to the Columbia, up that river to
the mountains, over the mountains and down the Missouri and
Mississippi, all the way (mountains and all), by the potent power
of steam." To this class, the report which the expedition made on
the trans-Mississippi country was far from encouraging. Said Major
Long in his final estimate: "In regard to this extensive section
of country, I do not hesitate in giving the opinion, that it is
almost wholly unfit for cultivation, and of course uninhabitable
by a people depending upon agriculture for their subsistence.
Although tracts of fertile land considerably extensive are
occasionally to be met with, yet the scarcity of wood and water,
almost uniformly prevalent, will prove an insuperable obstacle
in the way of settling the country. This objection rests not
only against the section immediately under consideration, but
applies with equal propriety to a much larger portion of the
country. . . . This region, however, viewed as a frontier, may
prove of infinite importance to the United States, inasmuch as
it is calculated to serve as a barrier to prevent too great an
extension of our population westward, and secure us against the
machinations or incursions of an enemy that might otherwise be
disposed to annoy us in that part of our frontier." In similar
vein is the comment of Dr. James: "We have little apprehension of
giving too unfavourable an account of this portion of the country.
Though the soil is in some places fertile, the want of timber,
of navigable streams, and of water for the necessities of life,
render it an unfit residence for any but a nomad population. The
traveller who shall at any time have traversed its desolate sands,
will, we think, join us in the wish that this region may for ever
remain the unmolested haunt of the native hunter, the bison, and
the jackall." Such a verdict was not welcomed by an expansive
people, eager to enter into and possess a land which imagination
pictured as suitable for the seat of an empire.
The teeming animal life of the great plains might have suggested
to Long and his associates its adaptability to the needs of man;
but for the occupation of the land without political peril, at
least two agencies were required, which were, in their day, hardly
more than dreams. We cannot blame the explorers for failing to
anticipate the marvels of the railroad and the irrigating ditch;
indeed, the repulse of the agricultural vanguard which attempted
the invasion of the plains west of the hundredth meridian only
half a generation ago, vindicates the prediction that the country
could not be possessed by methods then known. It may be doubted
whether their conservatism was not wiser than the confidence of
the more ardent expansionists; yet it is doubtless true that their
report, by depreciating the estimate of the value of the region,
put weapons into the hands of those Eastern men who cherished a
traditional jealousy of Westward expansion, and caused the
government rather to follow than to lead the movement.
Another apparent ground for criticism is the failure of the
expedition to accomplish either of the great objects mentioned in
the instructions--the discovery of the sources of the Platte and
of the Red. The readiness with which the explorers relinquished
their efforts to penetrate the mountains at the cañons of the
Platte and Arkansas, although the season was midsummer, seems to
indicate inefficiency as well as indifference to instructions.
Likewise, when the Canadian was reached and mistaken for the Red,
no effort was made to ascend the stream to its source; the
explorers were content to descend the river, leaving the exact
location of its head undetermined. Some excuse for this conduct is
afforded by the inadequacy of the equipment provided by Congress
for this enterprise. The federal government supplied six horses;
the remainder of the thirty-four were furnished by the members of
the party. "Our saddles and other articles of equipage," wrote
James, "were of the rudest kind, being, with a few exceptions,
such as we had purchased from the Indians, or constructed
ourselves;" and, he adds, that the "very inadequate outfit . . . was
the utmost our united means enabled us to furnish." Consequently,
the party was compelled to subsist largely upon the country
explored, and its movements were in no small degree dictated by
the fear of want. That many of the hardships experienced were due
to the slender outfit, is proved by the comparative comfort with
which later parties followed in their footsteps. Twenty-five years
afterwards, Colonel Abert, starting from Bent's Fort, on the upper
Arkansas, not many miles from the point where Long's forces had
divided, crossed the upland to the Canadian and descended to its
mouth, following essentially Long's route, and making the whole
journey in wagons, for which, save in a few places, a smooth
course was found. This party succeeded in finding sufficient water
at almost every camp, while the entire trip resembled more an
outing for pleasure than it did the harrowing journey of Major
Long. The route up the Canadian afterward became a much-used
pathway to New Mexico.[9]
When all allowances have been made, much carelessness is evident
in the explorations of the Long expedition. The bewilderment
of Bell's party was inexcusable in men of science possessing
instruments for determining latitude and longitude; their
geographical errors to some extent nullified their observations
of natural features. Cimarron River, the most important tributary
of the Arkansas next to the Canadian, they missed entirely, and
the relative size and location of the tributaries of the Arkansas
remained uncertain for years after. Upon beginning the descent
of the Arkansas they travelled two hundred miles without, so
far as James's _Account_ shows, making a note on geography or
topography; but possibly some allowance for this omission should
be made because of the theft of manuscripts by the deserters. Of
the itinerary of the expedition from the Platte to the Canadian,
it has been said, "It would be scarcely possible to find in
any narrative of Western history so careless an itinerary,
and in a scientific report like that of Dr. James it is quite
inexcusable."[10] To the account of the country traversed by
the expedition, James added information relative to portions of
Arkansas and Louisiana, much of which was already accessible to
the public through the reports and writings of Hunter and Dunbar,
Sibley, Darby, Stoddard, Schoolcraft, and others. However, this
portion of James's narrative also draws data from Major Long's
manuscript journals, not elsewhere available, and gives the
only account of the attempted exploration of Red River under
Captain Richard Sparks, based on the memoranda of members of the
expedition.
After all criticisms have been urged to the utmost, the work of
the expedition was, and is, of considerable value. The exploration
of the Canadian River was an important contribution to American
geography. It was thenceforth evident that the sources of the
Red must be looked for farther south than had previously been
supposed, although a generation was to elapse before their
discovery. Otherwise, the exploration added greatly to the
knowledge of a portion of the country but imperfectly known
through hunters and traders. Especially is this true as regards
details relative to natural history and ethnology; for the work
was done in the spirit of modern scientific investigation, and in
this respect anticipated later expeditions, for which American
public sentiment in 1820 was hardly ripe. The collections included
more than sixty skins of new or rare animals, several thousand
insects, of which many hundreds were new, nearly five hundred
undescribed plants, mineral specimens, many new species of shells,
numerous fossils, a hundred and twenty-two animal sketches, and a
hundred and fifty landscape views. While not primarily designed as
a scientific report on these collections, James's _Account_ gives
in the form of notes[11] much of the more important information
derived from them. Perhaps no other portions of the work,
however equal in value those devoted to the aborigines; as an
authoritative source of knowledge of the sociology of the Kansa
and Omaha tribes, the _Account_ has no rival.
Soon after his return from the Rockies, Major Long was sent upon
another expedition, this time to the sources of the St. Peter's
(now Minnesota) River. This enterprise was contemplated by the
original instructions issued to Long at the time of the
Yellowstone project; but the subsequent abandonment of the latter
compelled alterations in the programme of the scientific division.
As in the case of the first journey, the report of the St. Peter's
exploration is the work of another person--William H. Keating,
author of _Long's Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River,
Lake of the Woods, etc._ (Philadelphia, 2 vols., 1824).
For these several explorations, Long was breveted lieutenant-colonel.
In 1827 he assumed charge of the survey of the Baltimore & Ohio
Railroad, and for many years thereafter was much engaged in
railroad engineering. His _Railroad Manual_ (1829) was the first
original treatise on railroad building published in this country.
Upon the organization of the Topographical Engineers as a separate
corps (1838), he became a major; later (1861) he was made chief of
the corps, with the rank of colonel. He was retired from active
service in 1863, still being entrusted with important duties, which
were interrupted by his death, occurring at Alton, Illinois, the
following year.
After the publication of his account of Long's expedition, Dr.
James received an appointment as army surgeon, and was on the
frontier for six years, which he utilized in studying Indian
dialects; during this period he translated the New Testament into
the Chippewa tongue (1833), and published _The Narrative of John
Tanner_ (New York, 1830), the story of a child who had been
stolen by the Indians, and became a well-known interpreter.
Resigning his army post (1830), James became associate editor of
the _Temperance Herald and Journal_, at Albany; later (1834) he
removed to Iowa, and settled (1836) as an agriculturist near
Burlington, where he died in 1861.
In the preparation for the press of this reprint of James's
_Account_, the Editor has had throughout the assistance of Homer
C. Hockett, B.A., instructor in history in the University of
Wisconsin.
R. G. T.
MADISON. WIS., March, 1905.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See statement of the objects of the expedition by Secretary
Calhoun, in _American State Papers_, "Military Affairs," ii, p.
33.
[2] See quotations from contemporary sources in Chittenden,
_American Fur Trade_, ii, p. 562 _et seq._ Chapter ii of that
volume gives a good account of the Yellowstone expedition.
[3] See Preliminary Notice to the Philadelphia edition (1823),
which we supply in its proper place in the present reprint--it
having been omitted from the London edition which we follow.
[4] Henry Atkinson of North Carolina, became captain in the
Third Infantry in 1808. His subsequent record, as given in
Powell, _List of Officers of the U. S. Army_, is as follows:
"Col. I. G. 25 April, 1813. Col. 4th Inf., 15 April, 1814.
Trans. to 37th Inf., 22 April, 1814. Trans. to 6th Inf., 17 May,
1815. Brig. Gen. 13 May, 1820. Col. A. G., 1 June, 1821 which he
declined, and on 16 Aug., 1821, was assigned as Col. 6th Inf.
Retained as Col., 21 Aug., with Bvt. rank of Brig. Gen., 13 May,
1820. Died 14 June, 1842."
[5] Atkinson had contrived a device similar to the paddle-wheel
of a steamer, for propelling keel-boats, but operated by men. It
was afterwards used successfully.
[6] See the description of this boat given in note 145, _post_.
[7] For biographical sketches see footnote 1 of text.
[8] There are in the two editions differences in phraseology,
and each contains a few paragraphs omitted from the other. As a
rule these differences are of minor importance; where important,
the footnotes to the reprint give both readings. The London
edition contains a complete copy of Long's report in place of
mere extracts.
[9] The expedition was the most extensive which had been sent
out by the government, up to that time; and, as the _North
American Review_ remarked, was "in many respects much better
qualified and fitted out than Lewis and Clark." Nevertheless,
in commenting on the sentence in the Preliminary Notice, in
which James explains the scarcity of means for the expedition
as due to the state of the national finances, the same journal
exclaims: "Detestable parsimony! The only country but one in
the world, that has not been reduced to an avowed or virtual
bankruptcy; the country, which has grown and is growing in
wealth and prosperity beyond any other and beyond all other
nations, too poor to pay a few gentlemen and soldiers for
exploring its mighty rivers, and taking possession of the
empires, which Providence has called it to govern!"
[10] Chittenden, _American Fur Trade_, ii, p. 578.
[11] We have, for convenience, signed James's name to
all notes reprinted by us from the original issue; it should
be understood, however, that several members of the party
contributed these notes--some of them being indicated therein,
and others not.
PART I OF JAMES'S ACCOUNT OF S. H. LONG'S EXPEDITION, 1819-1820
Preliminary Notice reprinted from Volume I of Philadelphia
edition, 1823. Text reprinted from Volume I of London edition,
1823.
[Illustration: _Map of the Country_ drained by the
_MISSISSIPPI_.]
[Illustration: Facsimile of title-page to Volume I of James's
_Account_
ACCOUNT
OF AN
EXPEDITION
FROM PITTSBURGH
TO
THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS,
PERFORMED
IN THE YEARS 1819, 1820.
BY ORDER OF THE
HON. J. C. CALHOUN, SECRETARY OF WAR,
UNDER THE COMMAND OF
MAJ. S. H. LONG, OF THE U. S. TOP. ENGINEERS.
COMPILED
FROM THE NOTES OF MAJOR LONG, MR. T. SAY,
AND OTHER GENTLEMEN OF THE PARTY,
BY EDWIN JAMES,
BOTANIST AND GEOLOGIST TO THE EXPEDITION.
_IN THREE VOLUMES._
VOL. I.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR
LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN,
PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1823.
]
TO
THE HONOURABLE
JOHN C. CALHOUN,
SECRETARY OF WAR;
WHOSE LIBERAL VIEWS, ENLIGHTENED POLICY, AND
JUDICIOUS MEASURES,
WHILE THEY HAVE BEEN PROSECUTED WITH THE UTMOST
CIRCUMSPECTION AND ECONOMY,
HAVE CONTRIBUTED IN AN EMINENT DEGREE
TO THE
ADVANCEMENT OF THE NATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE
UNITED STATES,
BOTH IN SCIENCE AND POLITICS;
THE FOLLOWING PAGES
ARE MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY
THE AUTHORS,
AS A FEEBLE TESTIMONIAL OF
THEIR HIGH CONSIDERATION OF HIS TALENTS AND
PATRIOTISM, AND A GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
OF HIS INDULGENCE AND PATRONAGE.
PRELIMINARY NOTICE
[From the Philadelphia edition, 1823]
In selecting from a large mass of notes and journals the materials
of the following volumes, our design has been to present a
compendious account of the labors of the Exploring Party, and of
such of their discoveries as were thought likely to gratify a
liberal curiosity. It was not deemed necessary to preserve
uniformity of style, at the expense of substituting the language
of a compiler for that of an original observer. Important
contributions of entire passages from Major Long and Mr. Say, will
be recognized in various parts of the work, though we have not
always been careful to indicate the place of their introduction.
Those gentlemen have indeed been constantly attentive to the work,
both to the preparation of the manuscript and its revision for the
press.
In the following pages we hope to have contributed something
towards a more thorough acquaintance with the Aborigines of our
country. In other parts of our narrative where this interesting
topic could not be introduced, we have turned our attention
towards the phenomena of nature, to the varied and beautiful
productions of animal and vegetable life, and to the more
magnificent if less attractive features of the inorganic creation.
{2} If in this attempt we have failed to produce any thing to
amuse or instruct, the deficiency is in ourselves. The few minute
descriptions of animals and plants that were thought admissible,
have been placed as marginal notes, and we hope they will not be
the less acceptable to the scientific reader, for being given in
the order in which they occurred to our notice.
Descriptions of the greater number of the animals and plants
collected on the Expedition, remain to be given. These may be
expected to appear from time to time, either in periodical
journals or in some other form.
Not aspiring to be considered historians of the regions we
traversed, we only aimed at giving a sketch true at the moment of
our visit, and which, as far as it embraces the permanent features
of nature, will we trust, be corroborated by those who shall
follow our steps. Much remains to be done not only on the ground
we have occupied, but in those vast regions in the interior of our
continent, to which the foot of civilized man has never
penetrated. We cannot but hope, that the enlightened spirit which
has already evinced itself in directing a part of the energies of
the nation, towards the development of the physical resources of
our country, will be allowed still farther to operate; that the
time will arrive, when we shall no longer be indebted to the men
of foreign countries, for a knowledge of any of the products of
our own soil, or for our opinions in science.
We feel it a duty incumbent upon us, to acknowledge our
obligations to many distinguished individuals, both {3} military
and scientific, and particularly to several members of the
Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, for their prompt offers
of any aid in their power to contribute towards advancing the
objects of the expedition at its commencement. We are indebted
more especially to Professors James, Walsh, and Patterson, to
Dr. Dewees and Mr. Duponceau; each of whom furnished a number
of queries, and a list of objects, by which to direct our
observations. These we found eminently useful, and we regret to
state that, with many of our manuscripts they were inadvertently
mislaid, otherwise, they should have been published in this place,
for the information of future travellers.
An interesting communication from Messrs. Gordon and Wells, of
Smithland, Kentucky, was received after the first volume had gone
to press, consequently too late for insertion.
As a farther introduction to our narrative, we subjoin an extract
from the orders of the Honourable Secretary of War to Major Long,
exhibiting an outline of the plan and objects of the Expedition.
"You will assume the command of the Expedition to explore the
country between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains."
"You will first explore the Missouri and its principal
branches, and then, in succession, Red river, Arkansa and
Mississippi, above the mouth of the Missouri."
"The object of the Expedition, is to acquire as thorough and
accurate knowledge as may be practicable, of a portion of our
country, which is daily becoming {4} more interesting, but
which is as yet imperfectly known. With this view, you will
permit nothing worthy of notice, to escape your attention. You
will ascertain the latitude and longitude of remarkable points
with all possible precision. You will if practicable,
ascertain some point in the 49th parallel of latitude, which
separates our possessions from those of Great Britain. A
knowledge of the extent of our limits will tend to prevent
collision between our traders and theirs."
"You will enter in your journal, every thing interesting in
relation to soil, face of the country, water courses and
productions, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral."
"You will conciliate the Indians by kindness and presents, and
will ascertain, as far as practicable, the number and
character of the various tribes, with the extent of country
claimed by each."
"Great confidence is reposed in the acquirements and zeal of
the citizens who will accompany the Expedition for scientific
purposes, and a confident hope is entertained, that their
duties will be performed in such a manner, as to add both to
their own reputation and that of our country."
"The Instructions of Mr. Jefferson to Capt. Lewis, which are
printed in his travels, will afford you many valuable
suggestions, of which as far as applicable, you will avail
yourself."
It will be perceived that the travels and researches of the
Expedition, have been far less extensive than {5} those
contemplated in the foregoing orders:--the state of the national
finances, during the year 1821, having called for retrenchments in
all expenditures of a public nature,--the means necessary for the
farther prosecution of the objects of the Expedition, were
accordingly withheld.
EXPEDITION FROM PITTSBURGH TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
[PART I.]
CHAPTER I
Departure from Pittsburgh--North-western slope of the
Alleghany Mountains--Rapids of the Ohio.
Early in April, 1819, the several persons constituting the
exploring party had assembled at Pittsburgh. It had been our
intention to commence the descent of the Ohio, before the middle
of that month; but some unavoidable delays in the completion of
the steam boat, and in the preparations necessary for a long
voyage, prevented our departure until the first of May. On the
31st of March, the following instructions were issued by the
commanding officer, giving an outline of the services to be
performed by the party, and assigning to each individual[001] the
appropriate duties:--
"Pursuant to orders from the Hon. Secretary of War, Major Long
assumes the command of the expedition about to engage in
exploring the Mississippi, Missouri, and their navigable
tributaries, on board the United States' steam-boat, Western
Engineer.
"The commanding officer will direct the movements and
operations of the expedition, both in relation {2} to military
and scientific pursuits. A strict observance of all orders,
whether written or verbal, emanating from him, will be
required of all connected with the expedition. The prime
object of the expedition being a topographical description of
the country to be explored, the commanding officer will avail
himself of any assistance he may require of any persons on
board to aid in taking the necessary observations. In this
branch of duty, Lieutenant Graham and Cadet Swift will
officiate as his immediate assistants.
"The journal of the expedition will be kept by Major Biddle,
whose duty it will be to record all transactions of the party
that concern the objects of the expedition, to describe the
manners and customs, &c. of the inhabitants of the country
through which we may pass; to trace in a compendious manner
the history of the towns, villages, and tribes of Indians we
may visit; to review the writings of other travellers, and
compare their statements with our own observations; and in
general to record whatever may be of interest to the community
in a civil point of view, not interfering with the records to
be kept by the naturalists attached to the expedition.
"Dr. Baldwin will act as botanist for the expedition. A
description of all the products of vegetation, common or
peculiar to the countries we may traverse, will be required of
him, also the diseases prevailing among the inhabitants,
whether civilized or savages, and their probable causes, will
be subjects for his investigation; any variety in the anatomy
of the human frame, or any other phenomena observable in our
species, will be particularly noted by him. Dr. Baldwin will
also officiate as physician and surgeon for the expedition.
"Mr. Say will examine and describe any objects in zoology, and
its several branches, that may come under our observation. A
classification of all land and water animals, insects, &c. and
a particular description {3} of the animal remains found in a
concrete state will be required of him.
"Geology, so far as it relates to earths, minerals, and
fossils, distinguishing the primitive, transition, secondary,
and alluvial formations and deposits, will afford subjects of
investigation for Mr. Jessup. In this science, as also in
botany and zoology, facts will be required without regard to
the theories or hypotheses that have been advanced on numerous
occasions by men of science.
"Mr. Peale will officiate as assistant naturalist. In the
several departments above enumerated, his services will be
required in collecting specimens suitable to be preserved, in
drafting and delineating them, in preserving the skins, &c. of
animals, and in sketching the stratifications of rocks,
earths, &c. as presented on the declivities of precipices.
"Mr. Seymour, as painter for the expedition, will furnish
sketches of landscapes, whenever we meet with any distinguished
for their beauty and grandeur. He will also paint miniature
likenesses, or portraits, if required, of distinguished Indians,
and exhibit groups of savages engaged in celebrating their
festivals, or sitting in council, and in general illustrate any
subject, that may be deemed appropriate in his art.
"Lieutenant Graham and Cadet Swift, in addition to the duties
they may perform in the capacity of assistant topographers,
will attend to drilling the boat's crew, in the exercise of
the musket, the field-piece, and the sabre.
"Their duties will be assigned them, from time to time, by the
commanding officer.
"All records kept on board the steam-boat, all subjects of
natural history, geology, and botany, all drawings, as also
journals of every kind relating to the expedition, will at all
times be subject to the inspection of the commanding officer,
and at the conclusion of each trip or voyage, will be placed
at his disposal, as agent for the United States' government.
{4} "Orders will be given, from time to time, whenever the
commanding officer may deem them expedient.
"S. H. LONG, _Major U. S. Engineers,
commanding Expedition_."
On the 3d of May we left the arsenal,[002] where the boat had been
built, and after exchanging a salute of twenty-two guns, began to
descend the Alleghany, towards Pittsburgh. Great numbers of
spectators lined the banks of the river, and their acclamations
were occasionally noticed by the discharge of ordnance on board
the boat. The important duties assigned the expedition rendered
its departure a subject of interest, and some peculiarities in the
structure of the boat attracted attention.
We were furnished with an adequate supply of arms and ammunition,
and a collection of books and instruments.
On Wednesday the 5th of May, having completed some alterations,
which it appeared necessary to make in our engine, and received on
board all our stores, we left Pittsburgh and proceeded on our
voyage. All the gentlemen of the party, except Dr. Baldwin, were
in good health, and entered upon this enterprise in good spirits
and with high expectations. Fourteen miles below Pittsburgh, we
passed a steam-boat lying aground; we received and returned their
salute, as is customary with the merchants' boats on the Ohio and
Mississippi.
At evening we heard the cry of the whip-poor-will;[003] and among
other birds saw the pelecanus carbo, several turkey vultures, and
the tell-tale sand-piper. The spring was now rapidly advancing,
the dense forests of the Ohio bottoms were unfolding their
luxuriant foliage, and the scattered plantations assuming the
cheering aspect of summer.
{5} A few weeks' residence at and near Pittsburgh, and several
journies across the Alleghany mountains, in different parts, have
afforded us the opportunity of collecting a few observations
relative to that important section of country, which contains the
sources of the Ohio.
In the Alleghany river we found several of those little animals,
which have been described as a species of Proteus, but which to us
appear more properly to belong to the genus Triton.[004]
The north-western slope of that range of mountains, known
collectively as the Alleghanies, has a moderate inclination
towards the bed of the Ohio, and the St. Lawrence, which run
nearly in opposite directions along its base. This mountain
chain extends uninterrupted along the Atlantic coast, from the
Gulf of St. Lawrence south-west to the great alluvial formation
of the Mississippi. It crosses the St. Lawrence at the rapids
above Quebec, and has been supposed to be connected as a spur
to a group of primitive mountains occupying a large portion of
the interior of the continent, north of the great Lakes.[005] An
inspection of any of the late maps of North America, will show
that this range holds the second place among the mountain chains
of this continent. All our rivers of the first magnitude have
their sources, either in the Rocky Mountains, or in elevated
spurs, projecting from the sides of that range. The largest of
the rivers, flowing from the Alleghanies, is the Ohio; and even
this, running almost parallel to the range, and receiving as
many, and, with a few exceptions, as large rivers from the north
as from the south, seems in a great measure independent of it.
From the most elevated part of the continent, at the sources
of the Platte, and Yellow Stone, branches of the Missouri, the
descent towards the Atlantic is at least {6} twice obstructed by
ranges of hills nearly parallel, in direction, to each other.
Erroneous impressions have heretofore prevailed respecting the
character of that part of the country called the Mississippi
Valley. If we consider attentively that extensive portion of our
continent, drained by the Mississippi, we shall find it naturally
divided into two nearly equal sections. This division is made by
a range of hilly country, to be hereafter particularly described,
running from near the north-western angle of the Gulf of Mexico
north-eastwardly to Lake Superior. Eastward, from this range,
to the summit of the Alleghanies, extends a country of forests,
having usually a deep and fertile soil, reposing upon extensive
strata of argillaceous sandstone, compact limestone, and other
secondary rocks. Though these rocks extend almost to the highest
summits of the Alleghanies, and retain even there the horizontal
position which they have in the plains, the region they underlay
is not to be considered as forming a district of table lands.
On the contrary, its surface is varied by deep vallies and
lofty hills; and there are extensive tracts elevated probably
not less than eight hundred feet above the Atlantic ocean. The
north-western slope of the Alleghany mountains, though more
gradual than the south-eastern, is, like it, divided by deep
vallies, parallel to the general direction of the range. In these
vallies, many of the rivers, which derive their sources from
the interior and most elevated hills of the group, pursue their
courses for many miles, descending either towards the south-west,
or the north-east, until they at length acquire sufficient force
to break through the opposing ridges, whence they afterward pursue
a more direct course. As instances, we may mention the Monongahela
river, which runs nearly parallel, but in an opposite direction,
to the Ohio; the great Kenhawa, whose course above the falls forms
an acute angle with the part below; also the Cumberland, and
Tennessee, which run a {7} long distance parallel to each other,
and to the Ohio. This fact seems to justify the inference, that
some other agent than the rivers has been active in the production
of the vallies between the subordinate ridges of the Alleghany.
There appears some reason to believe that the rocky hills, along
the immediate course of the Ohio and the larger western rivers,
have received, at least, their present form from the operation of
streams of water. They do not, like the accessory ridges of the
Alleghany, form high and continuous chains, apparently influencing
the direction of rivers, but present groups of conic eminences
separated by water-worn vallies, and having a sort of symmetric
arrangement. The structure of these hills does not so much differ
from that of the Alleghany mountains, as their form and position.
The long chains of hills, which form the ascent to the Alleghany,
on the western side, are based either on metalliferous limestone,
or some of the inclined rocks belonging to the transition
formation of Werner, and have their summits capped with the
more recent secondary aggregates in strata without inclination,
and greatly resembling those found in the plains west of the
Ohio. It is not easy to conceive how these horizontal strata,
unless originally continuous, should appear so similar at equal
elevations in different hills, and hills separated by vallies of
several miles in width. If that convulsion which produced the
inclination of the strata, of the metalliferous limestone, the
clay-slate, and the gray wacke, happened before the deposition
of the compact limestone, and the argillaceous sandstones, why
are not these later aggregates found principally in the vallies,
where their integrant particles would be supposed most readily to
have accumulated? On the other hand, if the secondary rocks had
been deposited previous to that supposed change, how have their
stratifications retained the original horizontal {8} position,
while that of the transition strata has been changed?
Most of the rivers which descend from the western side of the
Alleghany mountains are of inconsiderable magnitude, and by
no means remarkable, on account of the straightness of their
course, or the rapidity of their currents. The maps accompanying
this work, will, in the most satisfactory manner, illustrate the
great contrast in this respect, between the district now under
consideration and the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains.
The Tennessee, the Cumberland, the Kentucky, the Kenhawa and
Alleghany rivers, though traversed in their courses by rocky
dikes, sometimes compressing their beds into a narrow compass,
occasioning rapids, and in other instances causing perpendicular
falls, yet compared to the Platte, and the western tributaries
of the Missouri generally, can be considered neither shoal nor
rapid. Their immediate banks are permanent, often rocky, and
the sloping beach covered with trees or shrubs, and the water,
except in time of high floods, nearly transparent. The waters of
the Ohio, and its tributaries, and perhaps of most other rivers,
when they do not suspend such quantities of earthy matter as to
destroy their transparency, reflect, from beneath their surface,
a greenish colour. This colour has been thought to be, in some
instances, occasioned by minute confervas, or other floating
plants, or to result from the decomposition of decaying vegetable
matter. That it depends on neither of these causes, however, is
sufficiently manifest, for when seen by transmitted light, the
green waters are usually transparent and colourless. Some rivers
of Switzerland, and some of South America, which descend from
lofty primitive mountains, consisting of rocks of the most flinty
and indestructible composition, covered with perpetual snows,
and almost destitute of organic beings, or exuviæ, either animal
or {9} vegetable, and whose waters have a temperature, even in
summer, raised but a few degrees above the freezing point, which
circumstance, together with the rapidity of their currents,
render them unfit for the abode of vegetable life, and is
incompatible with the existence of putrefaction, notwithstanding
the transparency of their waters, and the reddish, or yellowish
colour of the rocks which pave their beds, have a tinge of green,
like the Ohio and Cumberland, at times of low water. It is well
known that the water of the ocean, though more transparent than
any other, is usually green near the shores; and on soundings,
while at main ocean, its colour is blue. Perhaps the power which
transparent waters have of decomposing the solar light, and
reflecting principally the green rays, may have some dependence
upon the depth of the stratum. If this were the case, we might
expect all rivers, equally transparent and of equal depth, to
reflect similar colours, which is not always the case.
In the southern part of Pennsylvania, the range called particularly
the Alleghany ridge, is near the centre, and is most elevated of
the group. Its summit divides the waters of the Susquehannah on the
east from those of the Ohio on the west.
This mountain consists principally of argillite and the several
varieties of grey wacke, grey wacke slate, and the other
aggregates, which in transition formations usually intervene
between the metalliferous limestone and the inclined sandstone.
The strata have less inclination than in the Cove, Sideling, and
South mountains, and other ridges east of the Alleghany. The
summit is broad, and covered with heavy forests. Something of the
fertility of the Mississippi valley seems to extend, in this
direction, to the utmost limits of the secondary formation. The
western descent of the Alleghany ridge is more gradual than the
eastern, and the inclination of the strata in some measure
reversed. It is proper to remark, that, {10} throughout this group
of mountains, much irregularity prevails in the direction as well
as of the dip and inclination of strata. If any remark is
generally applicable, it is, perhaps, that the inclination of the
rocks is towards the most elevated summits in the vicinity.
Laurel ridge, the next in succession, is separated from the
Alleghany by a wide valley. Its geological features are, in
general, similar to those of the eastern ranges; but about its
summit, the sandstones of the coal formation begin to appear
alternating with narrow beds of bituminous clay-slate. Near the
summit of this ridge, coal beds have been explored, and, at the
time of our visit, coals were sold at the pits for ten cents per
bushel. In actual elevation, the coal strata at the summit of
Laurel-hill, fall but little below the summits of the Alleghany.
Thus, in traversing from east to west the state of Pennsylvania,
there is a constant but gradual ascent from the gneiss at
Philadelphia, the several rocky strata occurring one above
another, in the inverse order of their respective ages, the points
most elevated being occupied by rocks of recent origin, abounding
in the remains of animal and vegetable life.
Near the summit of this ridge some change is observed in the
aspect of the forest. The deep umbrageous hue of the hemlock
spruce, the Weymouth pine, and other trees of the family of
the coniferæ, is exchanged for the livelier verdure of the
broad-leaved laurel, the rhododendron, and the magnolia acuminata.
Chesnut ridge, the last of those accessary to the Alleghany on the
west, deserving the name of a mountain, is somewhat more abrupt
and precipitous, than those before mentioned. This ridge is
divided transversely by the bed of the Loyalhanna, a rapid, but
beautiful stream, along which the turnpike is built. Few spots in
the wild and mountainous regions {11} of the Alleghanies, have a
more grand and majestic scenery than this chasm. The sides and
summits of the two overhanging mountains, were, at the time of our
journey, brown, and to appearance almost naked; the few trees
which inhabit them being deciduous, while the laurels and rosebays
gave the deep and narrow vallies the luxuriant verdure of spring.
The Monongahela rises in Virginia, in the Laurel ridge, and
running northward, receives in Pennsylvania the Yohogany, whose
sources are in the Alleghany mountain, opposite those of the
Potomac. This river, like most of those descending westward from
the Alleghany, has falls and rapids at the points where it
intersects Laurel-hill, and some of the smaller ranges. Along the
fertile bottoms of the Alleghany river, we begin to discover
traces of those ancient works so common in the lower parts of the
Mississippi valley, the only remaining vestiges of a people once
numerous and powerful, of whom time has destroyed every other
record. These colossal monuments, whatever may have been the
design of their erection, have long since outlived the memory of
those who raised them, and will remain for ages affecting
witnesses of the instability of national, as well as individual
greatness; and of the futility of those efforts, by which man
endeavours to attach his name and his memorial to the most
permanent and indestructible forms of inorganic matter.
In the deep vallies west of the Alleghany, and even west of the
Laurel ridge, the metalliferous limestone, which appears to be the
substratum of this whole group of mountains, is again laid bare.
In this part of the range, we have not observed those frequent
alternations of clay-slate with this limestone, which have been
noticed by Mr. Eaton and others in New England.[006] In its
inclination, and in most particulars {12} of external character, it
is remarkably similar to the mountain limestone of Vermont, and the
western counties of Massachusetts. Many portions of the interior
of the state of Pennsylvania have a basis of this limestone. When
not overlaid by clay-slate, and particularly when not in connexion
with sandstone, the soils resting on the transition limestone are
found peculiarly fertile and valuable, having usually a favourable
disposition of surface for agricultural purposes, and abounding
with excellent water.
The transition limestone is not, however, of frequent occurrence
westward of the Alleghany ridge. It appears only in the
vallies,[007] and is succeeded by clay-slate and the old sandstone
lying almost horizontally. The coal, with the accompanying strata
of argillaceous sandstone and shale, are, as far as we have seen,
entirely horizontal.
The country westward from the base of the Chesnut ridge has an
undulating surface. The hills are broad, and terminated by a
rounded outline, and the landscape, presenting a grateful variety
of fields and forests, is often beautiful, particularly when, from
some elevation, the view overlooks a great extent of country, and
the blue summits of the distant mountains are added to the
perspective.
Pittsburgh has been so often described, the advantages and
disadvantages of its situation, and the gloomy repulsiveness of
its appearance, have been so often and so justly portrayed, that
we should not think ourselves well employed in recounting our own
observations. The Alleghany and the Monongahela at Pittsburgh,
where they unite to form the Ohio, are nearly equal in magnitude;
the former, however, on account of the rapidity of its current,
and the transparency of its waters, is a far more beautiful river
than the latter. Its sources are distributed along the margin of
Lake Erie, and a portage, of only fifteen miles, connects its
navigation with that of the St. Lawrence.
{13} About the sources of the Alleghany are extensive forests of
pine, whence are drawn great supplies of lumber for the country
below as far as New Orleans. On French Creek, and other tributary
streams, are large bodies of low and rather fertile lands, closely
covered with forests, where the great Weymouth pine, and the
hemlock spruce, are intermixed with beech, birch, and the sugar
maple. The great white or Weymouth pine, is one of the most
beautiful of the North American species. Its trunk often attains
the diameter of five or six feet, rising smooth and straight from
sixty to eighty feet, and terminated by a dense conical top. This
tree, though not exclusively confined to the northern parts of our
continent, attains there its greatest magnitude and perfection. It
forms a striking feature in the forest scenery of Vermont, New
Hampshire, and some parts of Canada, and New York; rising by
nearly half its elevation above the summits of the other trees,
and resembling, like the palms of the tropics, so beautifully
described by M. De Saint Pierre, and M. De Humboldt, "a forest
planted upon another forest."[008] The sighing of the wind in the
tops of these trees, resembles the scarce audible murmurings of a
distant waterfall, and adds greatly to the impression of solemnity
produced by the gloom and silence of the pine forest. In the
southern parts of the Alleghany mountains, pines are less
frequent, and in the central portions of the valley of the
Mississippi, they are extremely rare.
The coal formation, containing the beds which have long been
wrought near Pittsburgh, appears to be of great extent; but we are
unable particularly to point out its limits towards the north and
east.[009] One hundred miles above Pittsburgh, near the Alleghany
river, is a spring, on the surface of {14} whose waters are found
such quantities of a bituminous oil, that a person may gather
several gallons in a day. This spring is most probably connected
with coal strata, as are numerous similar ones in Ohio, Kentucky,
&c.[010] Indeed, it appears reasonable to believe that the coal
strata are continued along the western slope of the Alleghanies
with little interruption, at least as far northward as the brine
springs of Onondago. Of all the saline springs belonging to this
formation, and whose waters are used for the manufacture of salt,
the most important are those of the Kenhawa, a river of Virginia.
Others occur in that country of ancient monuments, about Paint
Creek, between the Sciota and the Muskinghum, near the Silver
Creek hills in Illinois; and indeed in almost all the country
contiguous to the Ohio river. Wherever we have had the opportunity
of observing these brine springs, we have usually found them in
connexion with an argillaceous sandstone, bearing impressions of
phytolytes, culmaria, and those tessellated zoophytes, so common
about many coal beds.[011] It appeared to us worthy of remark, that
in many places, where explorations have been made for salt water,
and where perpendicular shafts have been carried to the depth of
from two to four hundred feet, the water, when found, rises with
sufficient force to elevate itself several feet above the surface
of the earth. This effect appears to be produced by the pressure
of an aërial fluid, existing in connexion with the water, in those
cavities beneath the strata of sandstone, where the latter is
confined, or escaping from combination with it, as soon as the
requisite enlargement is given, by perforating the superincumbent
strata. We have had no opportunity of examining attentively the
gaseous substances which escape from the brine pits, but from
their sensible properties we are induced to suppose, that carbonic
acid, and carburetted hydrogen, are among those of most frequent
occurrence.[012]
{15} The little village of Olean,[013] on the Alleghany river, has
been for many years a point of embarkation, where great numbers of
families, migrating from the northern and eastern states, have
exchanged their various methods, of slow and laborious progression
by land, for the more convenient one of the navigation of the
Ohio. From Olean downward, the Alleghany and Ohio bear along with
their currents fleets of rude arks laden with cattle, horses,
household furniture, agricultural implements, and numerous
families having all their possessions embarked on the same bottom,
and floating onward toward that imaginary region of happiness and
contentment, which, like the "town of the brave and generous
spirits," the expected heaven of the aboriginal American, lies
always "beyond the place where the sun goes down."
This method of transportation, though sometimes speedy and
convenient, is attended with uncertainty and danger. A moderate
wind blowing up the river, produces such swells in some parts of
the Ohio, as to endanger the safety of the ark; and these heavy
unmanageable vessels are with difficulty so guided in their
descent, as to avoid the _planters_, sunken logs, and other
concealed obstructions to the navigation of the Ohio. We have
known many instances of boats of this kind so suddenly sunk, as
only to afford time for the escape of the persons on board.
On the 6th we arrived at Wheeling,[014] a small town of Virginia,
situate on a narrow margin along the bank of the Ohio, at the base
of a high cliff of sandstone. Here the great national road from
Cumberland comes in conjunction with that of Zanesville, Columbus,
and Cincinnati. The town of Cumberland, from which this great
national work has received the appellation of the Cumberland road,
lies on the north side of the Potomac, one hundred and forty miles
E. by S. from Wheeling. The road between these two points was
constructed by the government {16} of the United States, at a cost
of one million eight hundred thousand dollars.[015] The bridges and
other works of masonry, on the western portion of this road, are
built of a compact argillaceous sandstone, of a light gray or
yellowish white colour, less durable than the stone used in the
middle and eastern sections, which is the blue metalliferous
limestone, one of the most beautiful and imperishable among the
materials for building which our country affords. A few miles from
Wheeling, a small but beautiful bridge, forming a part of this
road, is ornamented with a statue of that distinguished statesman,
Mr. Clay; erected, as we were informed, by a gentleman who resides
in that neighbourhood.
In an excursion on shore, near the little village of Charleston,
[016] in Virginia, we met with many plants common to the eastern
side of the Alleghanies; beside the delicate sison bulbosum, whose
fruit was now nearly ripened. In shady situations we found the
rocks, and even the trunks of trees to some little distance from
the ground, closely covered with the sedum ternatum, with white
flowers fully unfolded. The cercis canadensis, and the cornus
florida, were now expanding their flowers, and in some places
occurred so frequently, as to impart their lively colouring to the
landscape. In their walks on shore, the gentlemen of the party
collected great numbers of the early-flowering herbaceous plants,
common to various parts of the United States.[017] An enumeration
of a few of the species most commonly known, with the dates of
their flowering, is given in the note.
The scenery of the banks of the Ohio, for two or three hundred
miles below Pittsburgh, is eminently beautiful, but is deficient
in grandeur and variety. The hills usually approach on both sides
nearly to the brink of the river; they have a rounded and graceful
form, and are so grouped as to produce a pleasing effect. Broad
and gentle swells of two or three hundred feet, covered with the
verdure of the almost unbroken {17} forest, embosom a calm and
majestic river; from whose unruffled surface, the broad outline of
the hills is reflected with a distinctness equal to that with
which it is imprinted upon the azure vault of the sky. In a few
instances near the summits of the hills, the forest trees become
so scattered, as to disclose here and there a rude mass, or a
perpendicular precipice of gray sandstone, or compact limestone,
the prevailing rocks in all this region. The hills are, however,
usually covered with soil on all sides, except that looking
towards the river, and in most instances are susceptible of
cultivation to their summits. These hilly lands are found capable
of yielding, by ordinary methods of culture, about fifty bushels
of maize per acre. They were originally covered with dense and
uninterrupted forests, in which the beech trees were those of most
frequent occurrence. These forests are now disappearing before the
industry of man; and the rapid increase of population and wealth,
which a few years have produced, speaks loudly in favour of the
healthfulness of the climate, and of the internal resources of the
country. The difficulty of establishing an indisputable title to
lands, has been a cause operating hitherto to retard the progress
of settlement, in some of the most fertile parts of the country of
the Ohio; and the inconveniences resulting from this source still
continue to be felt.
On the 7th, we passed the mouth of the Kenhawa, and the little
village of Point Pleasant. The spot now occupied by this village
is rendered memorable, on account of the recollections connected
with one of the most affecting incidents in the history of the
aboriginal population. It was here that a battle was fought, in
the autumn of 1774, between the collected forces of the Shawanees,
Mingoes, and Delawares on one side, and a detachment of the
Virginia militia, on the other. In this battle, Logan, _the friend
of the whites_, avenged himself in a signal manner of the injuries
of one man, by whom all his women {18} and children had been
murdered. Notwithstanding his intrepid conduct, the Indians were
defeated, and sued for peace; but Logan disdained to be seen among
the suppliants. He would not turn on his heel to save his life.
"For my country," said he, "I rejoice in the beams of peace; but,
do not harbour a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never
felt fear. Who is there to mourn for Logan! Not one." This story
is eloquently related by Mr. Jefferson, in his "Notes on
Virginia," and is familiar to the recollection of all who have
read that valuable work.[018]
In the afternoon of the 8th, we encountered a tremendous
thunder-storm, in which our boat, in spite of all the exertions we
were able to make, was driven on shore; but we fortunately escaped
with little injury, losing only our flag-staff with the lantern
attached to it, and some other articles of little importance. On
the following day we passed Maysville,[019] a small town of
Kentucky. On our return to Philadelphia, in 1821, we were delayed
some time at this place; and taking advantage of the opportunity
thus afforded, we made an excursion into that beautiful
agricultural district, south-east of Maysville, about the large
village of Washington.[020] The uplands here are extremely fertile,
and in an advanced state of cultivation. The disposition of the
surface resembles that in the most moderately hilly parts of
Pennsylvania; and to the same graceful undulation of the
landscape, the same pleasing alternation of cultivated fields,
with dense and umbrageous forests, is added an aspect of
luxuriant fertility, surpassing any thing we have seen eastward of
the Alleghanies. Having prolonged our walk many miles, we entered
after sunset a tall grove of elms and hickories; towards which we
were attracted by some unusual sounds. Directed by these, we at
length reached an open quadrangular area of several acres, where
the forest had been in part cleared away, and much grass had
sprung up. Here we found several hundreds of people, part sitting
{19} in tents and booths, regularly arranged around the area, and
lighted with lamps, candles, and fires; part assembled about an
elevated station, listening to religious exhortations. The night
had now become dark, and the heavy gloom of the forest, rendered
more conspicuous by the feeble light of the encampment, together
with the apparent solemnity of the great numbers of people,
assembled for religious worship, made considerable impression on
our feelings.
On the 9th May, we arrived at Cincinnati.[021] Since our departure
from Pittsburgh, Dr. Baldwin's illness had increased, and he had
now become so unwell, that some delay appeared necessary on his
account; as we wished also for an opportunity of making some
repairs and alterations in the machinery of the boat, it was
resolved to remain at Cincinnati some days. Dr. Baldwin was
accordingly moved on shore, to the house of Mr. Glen, and Dr.
Drake was requested to attend him. Cincinnati is the largest town
on the Ohio. It is on the north bank of the river, and the ground
on which it stands is elevated, rising gradually from the water's
edge.[022]
Compact limestone appears here, in the bed of the Ohio, and
extends some distance in all directions. This limestone has been
used in paving the streets, for which purpose its tabular
fragments are placed on edge, as bricks are sometimes used in
flagging. The formation of limestone, to which this rock belongs,
is one of great extent, occupying a large part of the country from
the shores of Lake Erie, to the southern boundary of the state of
Tennessee.[023] It appears, however, to be occasionally
interrupted, or overlaid by fields of sandstone. It abounds in
casts, and {20} impressions of marine animals. An orthocerite, in
the museum of the college[024] at Cincinnati, measures near three
feet in length. Very large specimens of what has been considered
lignite, have also been discovered and parts of them deposited in
that collection. We saw here no remains of ammonites. Numerous
other species appear to be similar to those found in the limestone
of the Catskill and Hellebergh mountains.
The soil, which overlays the limestone of Cincinnati, is a deep
argillaceous loam, intermixed with much animal and vegetable
matter. Vegetation is here luxuriant; and many plants unknown
eastward of the Alleghany mountains, were constantly presenting
themselves to our notice. Two species of æsculus are common. One
of these has a nut as large as that of the Æ. hippocastanum, of
the Mediterranean, the common horse-chesnut of the gardens.
These nuts are round, and after a little exposure become
black, except in that part which originally formed the point
of attachment to the receptacle, which is an oblong spot
three-fourths of an inch in diameter; the whole bearing some
resemblance to the eyeball of a deer, or other animal. Hence the
name _buck-eye_, which is applied to the tree. The several species
of æsculus are confined principally to the western states and
territories. In allusion to this circumstance, the indigenous
backwoodsman is sometimes called buck-eye, in distinction from
the numerous emigrants who are introducing themselves from the
eastern states. The opprobrious name of Yankee is applied to
these last, who do not always stand high in the estimation of the
natives of the south and west. Few of these sectional prejudices
are, however, to be discovered in Ohio, the greater part of the
population here having been derived from New England. Cincinnati,
which in 1810, contained 2500 inhabitants, is now said to number
about 12,000.[025] Its plan is regular, and most of the buildings
are of {21} brick. The dwellings are neat and capacious, and
sometimes elegant.
The site of the town was heretofore an aboriginal station, as
appears from the numerous remains of ancient works still visible.
We forbear to give any account of these interesting monuments, as
they have already been repeatedly described.[026]
On Tuesday, the 18th, the weather becoming clear and pleasant, Dr.
Baldwin thought himself sufficiently recovered to proceed on the
voyage; accordingly, having assisted him on board the boat, we
left Cincinnati at ten o'clock.
During our stay at that place, we had been gratified by the
hospitable attentions of the inhabitants of the town. Mr. Glen was
unremitting in his exertions to promote the recovery of Dr.
Baldwin's health; to him, as well as to Dr. Drake, and several
other gentlemen of Cincinnati, all the members of our party were
indebted for many friendly attentions.
Below Cincinnati the scenery of the Ohio becomes more monotonous
than above. The hills recede from the river, and are less elevated.
Heavy forests cover the banks on either side, and intercept
the view from all distant objects. This is, however, somewhat
compensated by the magnificence of the forests themselves. Here the
majestic platanus attains its greatest dimensions, and the snowy
whiteness of its branches is advantageously contrasted with the
deep verdure of the cotton-wood, and other trees which occur in the
low grounds.
The occidental plane tree is, perhaps, the grandest of the
American forest trees, and little inferior, in any respect, to the
boasted plane tree of the Levant. The platanus orientalis attains,
in its native forests, a diameter of from ten to sixteen feet. An
American plane tree, which we measured, on the bank of the Ohio,
between Cincinnati and the rapids at Louisville, was fourteen feet
in diameter. One which stood, some years since, near the village
of {22} Marietta, was found, by M. Michaux, to measure 15-7/10 ft.
in diameter, at twenty feet from the ground.[027] They often rise
to an elevation of one hundred and fifty feet. The branches are
very large and numerous, forming a spreading top, densely covered
with foliage. Many of those trees, which attain the greatest size,
are decayed in the interior of the trunk, long after the annual
increase continues to be added at the exterior circumference. The
growth of the American plane tree does not appear to be very
rapid. It was remarked by Humboldt, that in the hot and damp lands
of North America, between the Mississippi and the Alleghany
mountains, the growth of trees is about one-fifth more rapid than
in Europe, taking for examples the platanus occidentalis, the
liriodendron tulipifera, and the cupressus disticha, all of which
reach from nine to fifteen feet in diameter. It is his opinion
that the growth in these trees does not exceed a foot in diameter
in ten years.[028] As far as our observation has enabled us to
judge, this estimate rather exceeds than falls short of the truth.
This growth is greatly exceeded in rapidity by the baobab, and
other trees in the tropical parts of America; also by the gigantic
adansonia of the eastern continent,[029] and equalled, perhaps, by
several trees in our own climate, whose duration is less extended
than that of those above mentioned.[030]
The sycamore, or occidental plane tree, has been cultivated for
more than one hundred and eighty years in England, yet it does not
appear to have become entirely naturalized there, as we are
informed by President Smith,[031] that great numbers were killed by
the severe frost of the winters of 1810-11. In America this tree
is very widely distributed, and {23} extends northward beyond the
forty-fifth degree of north latitude. In the fertile alluvial
lands of Otter Creek, and other rivers which discharge into Lake
Champlain, the sycamore attains more than one-half the magnitude
which it is seen to reach in the most prolific portions of the
Mississippi valley; it appears, therefore, that some other cause
than the frigidity of the climate, must have occasioned the
destruction of the plane trees in England, since it is well known
that the winters of Vermont and Lower Canada far surpass in
severity those of the island of Great Britain.
The fruit of the sycamore is the favourite food of the paroquet,
and large flocks of these gaily-plumed birds constantly enliven
the gloomy forests of the Ohio.
During the night of the 18th, the weather being clear, we
continued on our voyage, as is customary with most of the
steam-boats navigating the Ohio.
It was long since remarked by Mr. Schulz,[032] and considered by
him as an inexplicable circumstance, that the reflection, by
night, of the image of the banks of the Ohio, does not furnish an
infallible guide to the middle of the bed of the river. Nothing
is more manifest than that the banks at different places, having
different degrees of elevation, and being sometimes naked, and
sometimes covered with very tall trees, must, of necessity, cast
shadows of different lengths, upon the surface of the water;
consequently that the luminous stripe along the middle of the
river, from the surface of which the sky and the stars are
reflected, must be greatly subject to irregularities in position
and direction. This circumstance often proves very annoying to
inexperienced pilots, who attempt to navigate the Ohio, or any
other river of similar character, by night, as we have had
occasion in many instances to experience.
On the morning of the 19th we arrived at Louisville[033] having
passed, in the night, the boats containing {24} the sixth regiment
of infantry, then on their way to the Missouri. At Louisville, we
stopped to procure a pilot to conduct our boat over the rapids.
Two or three pilots appointed pursuant to an act of the
legislature of Kentucky, reside at Louisville, always holding
themselves in readiness to go on board such boats as are about to
descend the rapids, and leaving them again at Shippingsport; for
which service they are entitled to receive two dollars for each
ark or raft.
At these rapids, called usually the falls of the Ohio, the river
descends about twenty-two feet, in a distance of less than two
miles. At times of high water an acceleration of current, not
usual in other parts of the river, is all that is perceived in
passing down this descent: at other times the water is dashed and
broken upon the rocky and uneven bed of the channel, called the
_Indian chute_, through which a great part of the water passes.
The magnificence of a cataract is, however, at no time displayed
here; and it is only in peculiar conditions of the atmosphere,
that the noise of the fall can be heard at the distance of
one-fourth of a mile from the bank of the river.
Large boats ascend the rapids at the time of the spring floods, by
the aid of a cable made fast to a tree, or some other object
above, and taken in by the capstan. In 1821, the Maysville, a
steam-boat of about two hundred tons, was taken up, and had nearly
reached the head of the rapid, when the cable broke; and the boat
swinging round, was thrown against the rocks, in the bed of the
river, and placed in such a situation as to render hopeless all
attempts to get her off before the next annual rise of the water.
Arks and small barges descend, by the aid of skilful pilots, for
great part of the year. It is expected that the navigation of this
dangerous rapid will soon be rendered more convenient, by
canaling, which can be accomplished at a very inconsiderable {25}
expense. The direction of the Ohio, above and below the rapids, is
nearly from north-east to south-west, but where the stream passes
the rocky obstruction occasioning the fall, it is a little
deflected from its course, making a bend towards the west. Thus a
point is formed on the south-eastern side projecting from the
elevated bank, which, from its present position, would seem to
indicate that the bed of the river had changed its place, having
formerly traversed the point from north-east to south-west, in a
direct line. In times of high floods the water is, in part,
discharged through this old channel, and large boats are said to
have ascended by that route within a few years past.
On this point stands the small town of Shippingsport, at the foot
of the rapids.[034] The proposed canal will traverse the point in
the rear of this village. The obstacles to be encountered in
opening a canal at this place are but trifling. The soil is firm
and gravelly, being based on horizontal strata of compact
limestone, and fine argillaceous sandstone.[035]
The sandstone, which is the rock of most common occurrence about
the rapids, very closely resembles that of Pittsburgh. It is
commonly of a compact texture, having an argillaceous cement, with
a laminated structure. At Shippingsport, and at Clarksville,[036]
in Indiana, it is succeeded by bituminous clay-slate. While we
were waiting at the rapids, several of the party made an excursion
to visit the boiling spring, at the foot of the Silver Creek
hills, in Indiana, at a little distance from New Albany.[037] This
spring is small, discharging no water above the surface of the
ground. It is an artificial excavation in the clayey bank of a
small stream, called Fountain Creek. It is filled to the level of
the water in the creek, the spring itself evidently discharging
very little, if any water. That which fills the basin is turbid,
being kept in constant agitation by the bubbles of inflammable air
which rise through it. The {26} smell of sulphuretted hydrogen is
perceptible at considerable distance about the spring; and a piece
of silver, held near the surface of the water, was quickly
tarnished. The Silver Creek hills are of argillaceous sandstone,
and secondary clay-slate; and this spring seems to be placed near
the meeting of the two strata.
In the bed of the Ohio, opposite Shippingsport, is a tabular mass
of rocks, visible above water for great part of the year, and
called Corn Island.[038] On the highest parts of this, are
remaining some small portions of the limestone stratum, which
appears in many places to have been worn through, and removed by
the river. Five or six acres of the surface of this island are of
the smooth compact argillaceous sandrock before mentioned, lying
horizontally, and divided into squares and parallelograms by the
natural fissures. These fissures contain some soil which supports,
in the summer, a dense growth of herbaceous plants. Among these,
we noticed the hypericum sphæcrocarpum of Michaux, (apparently not
the plant mentioned by Nuttall, under that name, which has been
noticed near Philadelphia, by Collins and others, but without
doubt that originally described by Michaux). Two species of
andropogon, the panicum virgatum, solanum nigrum, polygala
verticillata, leplanthus gramineus, chenopodium botrys, &c. The
lower part of the island is covered with loose sand; bearing some
small cotton-wood and willow trees.
The unenclosed grounds, about Louisville and Shippingsport, are
extensive, and afford pasturage to great numbers of domestic
animals. They are, however, much overrun with luxuriant weeds.
The datura strammonium, which is common in every part of Ohio,
is sometimes eaten by sheep; and the spiny capsules of the
seed, when about half ripened, we have seen eaten with apparent
avidity by cows. In addition to this loathsome plant, the common
May-weed (anthemis cotula) has become abundant {27} in all the
waste-grounds, to the exclusion of the native plants. A few of
these, which keep their places with the greatest obstinacy by the
road sides, are the sida abutilon and S. spinosa, and the verbena
hastata; while the thistles, chrysanthemums and Johnsworts, so
common about old fields in New England, are not to be met with. The
eleusine mucronata, of _Pursh_, is one of the most frequent grasses
along the streets.
The Silver Creek hills are elevated about one hundred and fifty or
two hundred feet above the level of the country in the rear of
Jeffersonville.[039] They form a continuous range, crossing the
country from north to south. On the Kentucky side they constitute
the commencement of a rugged and barren district, called the
_Knobs_, and extending far to the south.[040] At some remote period
this range may have formed a barrier, extending across what is now
the immediate valley of the Ohio, and retarding the retreat of the
waters from the tract above the falls.[041] Coal occurs frequently
in this range of hills, on the north side of the Ohio; quarries
have been opened near the Blue river, in Indiana, about the two
Pidgeons, opposite the mouth of Green river, and in various other
places.[042]
The larger steam-boats which run on the Mississippi, and the Ohio,
ascend usually no farther than Shippingsport; and several of them
remain at this place, during several months of the summer, while
the water is too low to admit their passing up and down the
rivers. This time it is often necessary to spend in repairs of
various kinds. The high steam-engines require frequent repairs,
and in the difficult navigation of the Mississippi the hulks of
vessels are often injured. It frequently happens that the boats
built at Pittsburgh, and other places near the sources of the
Ohio, are, within three or four years after they {28} are
launched, in a condition to require the planking of the hulk to be
replaced with new timber. These boats are usually planked with the
upland white oak: we have been informed that such as are built
lower down on the river, and of timber found in the low grounds,
are more durable.
FOOTNOTES:
[001] John Biddle, a Pennsylvanian, entered the army July
6, 1812, as second lieutenant in the 3d Artillery. In March
following he became first lieutenant, and in the succeeding
October captain in the 42d Infantry. He was transferred
to the artillery corps in 1815, made major and assistant
inspector-general in 1817, and disbanded in 1821. He was in
Long's party only during the first season.
William Baldwin (1779-1819), also of Pennsylvania, was the son
of a minister of the Society of Friends. He studied medicine
in the University of Pennsylvania, taking his degree in 1807.
Meanwhile he had become interested in botany, and upon
locating at Wilmington, Delaware, to practice his profession,
studied assiduously the flora of the vicinity. In 1811
ill-health compelled him to remove to Georgia, but during the
War of 1812-15 he served as a surgeon in the army. In 1817 he
was a member of the special commission sent by the federal
government to investigate the affairs of the Spanish-American
colonies, then struggling for independence. Some of Dr.
Baldwin's writings were published in the _Transactions_ of the
American Philosophical Society and _Silliman's Journal_. He
died while upon the present expedition, and a further sketch
will be found in the text, _post_.
Thomas Say (1787-1834) was also the son of a Pennsylvania
Friend, Benjamin Say, a physician, and one of the "fighting
Quakers" of the Revolution. Thomas was one of the founders of
the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, and before
joining Long's expedition had taken part in a scientific
exploration of the coasts of Georgia and Florida. He accompanied
Major Long upon his later expedition up St. Peter's River.
In 1825 he joined the colony under Robert Dale Owen, at New
Harmony, Indiana. His principal work was _American Entomology_
(Philadelphia, 3 vols., 1824-28). He is said to have discovered
more new species of insects than any predecessor, many of them
being discovered during the present exploration.
Augustus Edward Jessup was born at New Richmond, Massachusetts,
in 1789, and although known chiefly as a prosperous Philadelphia
business man, was much interested in science, being an early
member of the Philadelphia Academy. He remained with the
expedition during the first season only.
Titian Ramsey Peale (1800-1885) came of a family which has
produced a remarkable number of artists, the most notable
being a brother, Rembrandt. His father, an uncle, another
brother, and three cousins achieved more or less distinction
in that field. Like his father and brother, T. R. Peale
divided his attention between art and natural science. He was
an officer of the Philadelphia Academy, and author of
_Mammalia and Ornithology_ (1848). From 1838 to 1842 he was a
member of Lieutenant Charles Wilkes's exploring expedition to
the South Sea; during the years 1849-72 he was an examiner in
the patent office.
The events of the life of Samuel Seymour are now not known.
James D. Graham (1799-1865), a Virginian, was a West-Pointer
of the class of 1817. When ordered on Long's expedition he was
first lieutenant in the artillery corps. From 1822-29 was on
topographical duty in Vermont and elsewhere. This experience
was followed by a number of years of railroad surveying, and
he also took part in nearly all the federal boundary surveys
of the period, serving on the northeastern, Canadian, and
Mexican boundary commissions. During the later years of his
life he was in charge of harbor improvements on the Atlantic
coast and Great Lakes, and while engaged in the latter work
discovered the existence of lake tides. At the time of his
death he was colonel in the corps of engineers.
William Henry Swift, of Massachusetts, was of mixed Puritan and
Huguenot stock. His father was an army surgeon, and a brother,
General Joseph Gardner Swift, was the first graduate of West
Point. William himself entered the military academy when but
thirteen years of age (1813), and as his class graduated during
his absence on Long's expedition, he was, under date of July 1,
1819, promoted to a lieutenancy in the artillery corps. The map
of the country explored by the expedition was prepared by him.
His later career was notable--he was engaged especially on coast
improvements, fortifications, railroads, and canals; to him more
than to any one else is attributed the success of the Illinois
and Michigan canal. His collection of papers relative to the
latter was, upon his death, presented to the Chicago Historical
Society.--ED.
[002] Allegheny arsenal is on the Pittsburg side of Allegheny
River, opposite the upper end of McCullough's Island. The
grounds lie between Thirty-ninth and Fortieth streets. The
site was purchased in 1814; a wall inclosing the grounds was
completed in 1829. The arsenal was for many years used in the
manufacture of war materials, a force of twelve hundred men
being employed there during the War of Secession. Since 1868
it has been used as a military post, and as a quartermaster's
depot. There were recently (1904) discovered there the principal
documents relating to the equipment of the Lewis and Clark
expedition, which was largely outfitted therefrom.--ED.
[003] Caprimulgus vociferus.--JAMES.
[004] _Triton lateralis._ SAY.--_Body_ and extremity above
brown, with irregular black spots; _tail_ much compressed,
subacutely edged above and beneath, lanceolate; a black vitta
from the nostrils passes through the eyes, and is dilated on the
sides, and becomes obsolete on the tail; a vertebral indented
line, from the neck to the origin of the caudal carina, more
faintly indented on the head; _head_ somewhat rectilineary
attenuated from the anterior branchia, to the vicinity of the
nostril, and truncate or subemarginate before; _nostrils_
minute; _eyes_ very small, whitish, crossed with the lateral
line of the head; _beneath_ pale flesh-colour; _chin_ and _jaws_
to the branchia, and _tail_ from the posterior feet, with the
exception of the areola of the anus, coloured like the back;
_mouth_ moderate, angles beneath the eyes; _lips_ covering
the jaws freely, inferior lip with a duplicature each side,
which is white and covered by the superior lip; _tongue_ free,
fleshy, rounded, extending beyond the angles of the mouth;
_teeth_, lower jaw in a single row, obtusely conic, small,
rather distant; a few smaller ones near the angle, elevated on
a slightly prominent portion of the jaw; _superior jaw_, with
a double series of teeth similar to the others, but rather
smaller, an unarmed depression corresponding with the elevation
in the lower jaw, and a few elevated teeth nearer the angle;
_throat_ with a duplicated cuticle; branchiæ permanent. Legs
short, weak, four-toed.
Total length 10 inches, from the tip of the nose to the vent,
6-1/2 inches.
We caught this animal with the hook and line in the neighbourhood
of Pittsburgh, but it is by no means so common there as the
Salamandra Alleghaniensis of Michaux, or young alligator.
The colour above is in reality pale, but it is rendered of a
brownish appearance by the very numerous confluent points of
that colour, which nearly cover the surface of the body;
branchia bright red; peduncles colour of the body. Daudin
informs us, that Schneider, in his history of Amphibia,
describes an animal very similar to this, found in Lake
Champlain, and which Daudin supposes to be the larva of
_Triton Alleghaniensis_; Daudin, however, is of the opinion,
that the hind feet were mutilated, from the circumstance of
their having only four toes.
The late Professor B. S. Barton had heard of this animal, and
from the account he received, was led to regard it as a Siren.
Finally, Dr. Mitchell has autoptically described the animal,
in the 4th vol. of Silliman's Journal, as a Proteus.
Not supposing the _lateralis_ to belong, strictly speaking, to
either of these genera, and with a view to ascertain its real
nature, we obtained permission from the Academy of Natural
Science, to open a specimen belonging to their cabinet, and
which was brought from the Ohio by Mr. J. Speakman. The result
corresponded with our most confident expectations, showing
that the number of its vertebræ is greatly inferior to that of
the Proteus, and corresponding with that of the Tritons; and
that the pseudo ribs were in an entire series, somewhat
superior in proportional length and perfection of form to
those of the Proteus, and resembling those of the Triton. It
has, therefore, a far more close alliance with the genus
Triton, than with any other yet established.
Several animals have been described, to which it is more
closely related by the character of the persistent branchia,
than it is to the well-known types of the genus, of which the
branchia disappear at the age of puberty. Of such animals the
following may be instanced:
The _Axolotl_ of Mexico. Siren pisciformis of Shaw. Gen. Zool.
The _Tetradactyla_ of Lacepede in the Ann. des Mus. vol. x.
The _Siren Operculée_ of Beauvois in Philos. Trans. of Phila.
vol. iv.
And possibly also, the _Proteus Neo Cæsariensis_ of Professor
Green.--Jour. A. N. S. vol. i.
These four or five species might with propriety be separated
from the genus to which they are referable in the present
state of the system, and placed in a separate genus, the
external characters of which will be the same as those of
Triton, with the exception of the persistent branchia. Its
proper station will doubtless be intermediate between Triton
and Proteus, but far more closely related to the former.
It may be proper to mention in this place, that the generic name
_Triton_, was applied by Laurenti to the Newts, long before
Montfort made use of it in Conchology to designate the war
conch of the ancient Romans, and of the present inhabitants of
Madison's Island.
We are indebted to Dr. Richard Harlan, for the following
anatomical observations, on this singular animal.
Alveolar margins of the maxillæ serrated, the spiculæ pointing
backwards towards the œsophagus. The œsophagus very large, like
that of the serpents, gradually expanding as it descends to
form the stomach, which again contracts at the commencement of
the intestinal tube; the lining membrane of the œsophagus and
stomach, thrown into longitudinal folds, which were continued
throughout the intestines; which tube undergoes several
enlargements in its course, giving it a sacculated appearance
similar to the alimentary canal of the alligator; in the animal
under consideration, they form several convolutions previous
to their termination into the cloaca; the stomach contained an
earth worm. The mesentery transparent, displaying a number of
very large lacteals, which, in the present instance, were filled
with coagulated chyle. Length of the intestines 10 inches.
The ovary is of considerable size, of an oblong figure, lying
close to the vertebræ, and opening by a straight duct into the
posterior part of the cloaca. _Liver_ very large, and apparently
(but not certainly) discharged its contents into the stomach.
_Lungs_ consist of two long membranous bags, which run the whole
length of the abdomen, anteriorly to the stomach and intestines;
the opening of the larynx scarcely large enough to admit a pin's
head; the lungs resemble two long air-bags, more than a true
pulmonary apparatus; the cartilaginous laminæ of the branchia,
three in number, attached superiorly to the integuments over the
cervical vertebræ, converging together beneath or anteriorly,
and are attached to a cartilage answering to the os hyoides; the
heart, which was extremely small, consisted apparently of one
auricle and one ventricle, the aorta soon bifurcated, sending
one branch to each pulmonary apparatus to be intimately ramified
upon the branchia, resembling so far the circulation of fishes,
and differing from the amphibia, in which there is either a
double or mixed circulation.
Olfactory apparatus similar to that of fishes, viz. a small
aperture near the extremity of the snout leads into a cavity
or _cul de sac_, lined by a delicate membrane, plentifully
supplied by the fibrillæ of two slender olfactory nerves,
which go off from the anterior end of each lobe of the
cerebrum. The brain is of an oblong figure, the cerebrum is
formed of two lobes, the cerebellum of one lobe situate
directly posterior, not much thicker than the medulla
oblongata. The optic nerves, which were large in proportion to
the organs of vision, took their origin in a very unusual
manner. On either side of the medulla oblongata, is given off
a large nerve, which proceeds forwards and outwards, and soon
after it passes outside of the cavity of the cranium, it
divides into two branches, the smaller goes to the eye, the
larger is distributed to the superior maxilla. The eye itself
is small, and the lens which was coagulated by the spirits, is
about half the size of a pin's-head, and of the texture of the
lens of a fish when boiled.
The number of vertebræ from the atlas to the last lumbar, is
exactly nineteen; to the transverse processes of all of them
(after the two first) is attached, by a movable articulation,
a small slender spicular of bone, or rib-like process, about
one-eighth of an inch in length, which at the same time, they
give origin to the large muscles that move the body, offer no
obstruction to the lateral curvatures of the animal when in
motion, but as to appearance or function are not to be
considered as ribs. The number of vertebræ from the first
sacral to the last caudal, is from twenty to thirty-five; they
become exceedingly small towards the end of the tail; on the
back part of the œsophagus, exterior to the cavity of the
cranium, is found on each side, a calcareous concretion,
similar to that in the head of the shark.--JAMES.
[005] Maclure.--JAMES.
[006] Geological Survey of Rensselaer county, p. 11.--JAMES.
[007] When central Pennsylvania began to seek an
outlet for her population, the fertility of the soil produced
by the disintegration of the limestone flooring of the
northeast-and-southwest valleys of the mountains, and the
barriers to Western migration imposed by the parallel ridges,
directed most of the pioneers southwestward.--ED.
[008] See Humboldt's Personal Narrative, vol. v. p. 46. Also St.
Pierre's Paul and Virginia.--JAMES.
[009] The great coal field of which that of western Pennsylvania
is a part, is eight hundred miles in length and one hundred and
eighty in width. Besides Pennsylvania, it includes southeastern
Ohio, the western part of Maryland, most of West Virginia,
portions of Kentucky and Tennessee, and the northern end of
Alabama. In Pennsylvania, the main field does not extend farther
north than a central east-and-west line, but several great
projections reach almost to the northern boundary. East of the
Alleghenies the deposits are anthracite, while the bituminous
fields occupy the southwestern section of the state.--ED.
[010] The uses of petroleum have been known from time
immemorial; but the quantities laboriously gathered from springs
like those here described were economically insignificant. The
importance of the industry dates from the discovery, in 1858,
that vast quantities of oil could be obtained by drilling wells.
The excitement which ensued was comparable to that caused
by finding gold in California. Among United States exports,
petroleum products now rank near the top of the column.--ED.
[011] James implies that the Onondaga salt deposits are in the
Carboniferous system. Such deposits, however, occur in almost
every geological system, from Silurian to Recent, and the New
York areas are found in the Silurian; the Kanawha salt district
is Carboniferous. The Onondaga springs were known to Jesuit
missionaries as early as 1646, and soon after were utilized in
making salt for the Indian trade. The existence of salt licks
and springs west of the mountains was an important factor in the
settlement of the trans-Allegheny country. The pioneers could
not have ventured so far from the coast without a native supply
of this necessity.--ED.
[012] So-called gas springs were known to settlers long before
any attempt was made to utilize the product; about 1821,
burners were first devised by which it was made to serve for
lighting purposes. For several years after the beginning of
the oil industry, gas was generally considered as a worthless
and troublesome by-product, and not many wells were drilled
for it until after 1870. The pressure of the gas is sometimes
enormous--as much as three hundred and fifty pounds to the
square inch has been noted. Natural gas consists essentially of
carburetted hydrogen.--ED.
[013] Olean is situated at the head of navigation of the
Allegheny, at the mouth of Olean Creek, in Cattaraugus County,
New York. The first settlers came prior to 1805. It was the
southern terminus of the Genesee Valley canal (begun in 1836),
until in the fifties when that waterway was extended to the
Pennsylvania line. The growth of Olean has been rapid since the
inception of the oil industry; it now being one of the most
important storage and shipping points in the oil fields.--ED.
[014] For sketch of Wheeling, see André Michaux's _Travels_, in
our volume iii, note 15.--ED.
[015] For note on national road, see Harris's _Journal_, in our
volume iii, note 45.--ED.
[016] Charleston, the seat of Kanawha County, West Virginia,
is situated on the Great Kanawha, about fifty miles above its
mouth. The site was included in a grant made (1772) by Lord
Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, to Thomas Bullitt. In 1786
Bullitt transferred his claim to George Clendenin, who was the
first settler on the spot; he built Clendenin's fort in 1786 or
1787.--ED.
[017] _April_ 3d. Dentaria laciniata, Lamium amplexicaule, Draba
verna, Poa anua, Alsine media, Houstonia cerulea, Saxifraga
virginiensis.
4th. Anemone hepatica, _Hepatica triloba of Pursh_. Flowers
varying from blue to white. Alnus serulata, Carpinus Americanus,
Satyrium repens, root perennial.
9th. Collected in flower from the south-west side of the Ohio,
Sanguinaria canadensis, Hydrocotile bipinnata; root small and
round, with small tubers attached to the fibre like radicles,
flowers white. Poa brevi-folia.
13th. Glehoma hederacea; this plant covers not only the low
grounds, but the wildest hills, particularly in northern
exposures. Is it native?
24th. Pulmonaria Virginica: this is a predominant plant on the
islands, as well as along the shores of the Alleghany on both
sides. Epigæa repens, Phlox divaricata.
25th. Corydalis cucullaria, Trillium erectum, flowers varying
from dark purple to white. Anemone thalictroides, Carex
oligocarpa, Gnaphalium plantagineum, Potentilla sarmentosa,
Obolaria virginica, Acer saccharinum, and A. dasycarpum, still
flowering. Also the Celtis occidentalis, Ulmus Americana, and
Planera aquatica, past.
27th. Veronica peregrina, and Ranunculus celeratus; both
common in the wildest situations and apparently native.
28th. Stellaria pubera, Turritis lævigata, Arabis lyrata,
Viola pubescens, Ranunculus hirsutus, Thalictum dioicum,
Cercis canadensis, Cerastium vulgatum.
30th. Dentaria diphylla, Trillium sesile, Mitella diphylla,
Delphinium tricorne, Arabis thaliana, Caulophillum thalictroides.
_May_ 1st. Carpinus Americanus, Vicia cracca, Ranunculus
abortivus, Saxifraga Pennsylvanica, Uvularia grandiflora, _Ph._
3d. Geranium maculatum. Apple-tree flowering. Veronica
officinalis. _Dr. Baldwin's_ Diary.--JAMES.
[018] For Point Pleasant and the battle fought there,
see Thwaites and Kellogg, _Documentary History of Lord
Dunmore's War_ (Madison, Wis., 1905); Croghan's _Journals_, in
our volume i, note 101; and Bradbury's _Travels_, in our
volume v, note 156. Chief Logan was not present at this
battle. The full text of his famous speech is given in
Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia;" Ford, _Writings of Thomas
Jefferson_ (New York, 1894), iii, p. 156; Roosevelt, _Winning
of the West_ (New York, 1889), i, p. 237. It has long ranked
as one of the great masterpieces of Indian oratory; but its
genuineness was attacked by Luther Martin, of Maryland, and
others. A summary of the evidence pro and con is given in
Brantz, _Tah-Gah-Jute; or Logan and Cresap_ (Albany, 1867),
appendix No. 2. It is now generally conceded that it was
delivered by Logan substantially as we have it.--ED.
[019] For sketch of Maysville, see André Michaux's _Travels_, in
our volume iii, note 23.--ED.
[020] Washington, four miles southwest of Maysville, was
founded in 1786, and was an important town in the early days of
Kentucky. It was for some time the seat of Mason County.--ED.
[021] For the early history of Cincinnati, see Cuming's _Tour_,
in our volume iv, note 166.--ED.
[022] For sketches of Glen and Drake, see Nuttall's _Journal_,
in our volume xiii, note 35.--ED.
[023] Drake's Picture of Cincinnati, page 64. To that work,
Cranmer's [Cramer's] "Navigator," published at Pittsburgh in
1814, and Gilleland's "Ohio and Mississippi Pilot," we refer our
readers for very minute, and in general very accurate, accounts
of the country along the Ohio.--JAMES.
_Comment by Ed._ This area, known to geologists as the
"Cincinnati anticline," is co-extensive with the fertile blue
grass lands. It consists essentially of an island of Ordovician
(Lower Silurian) limestone, surrounded by the later systems. The
Ordovician system is especially characterized by mollusca of
the cephalopod class, to which _Orthoceras_ belongs, while the
Ammonites do not appear below the Devonian.
[024] Cincinnati College, the forerunner of Cincinnati
University, grew out of a school established in 1814 on the
model of the new English system of Lancaster and Bell. The
college was chartered in 1815. Possibly the reference is to the
recently-established medical college, for which see Nuttall's
_Journal_, in our volume xiii, note 35.--ED.
[025] Population by census of 1820, 9,642; of 1830, 24,831.--ED.
[026] The Cincinnati mounds are now obliterated. A good
description of them, with diagram, is given in _Smithsonian
Contributions to Knowledge_ (Washington, 1852), iii, art.
vii.--ED.
[027] Voy. a l' ouest des monts Alleghany, 1804. p. 93.--JAMES.
_Comment by Ed._ See F. A. Michaux's _Travels_, in our volume
iii, p. 175.
[028] Pers. Nar. vol. i. p. 357. Philadelphia Edition.--JAMES.
[029] Salt's Abyssinia, p. 49. Amer. Edit.--JAMES.
[030] The cotton-wood-tree is of very rapid growth. It
has been ascertained that one individual, in the term of
twenty-one years, attained the height of one hundred and eight
feet, and nine inches, and the diameter of twenty and an half
inches, exclusive of the bark. _Barton's_ Supp. Med. and Phys.
Jour. p. 71.--JAMES.
[031] Sir James Edward Smith (1759-1828), founder and
first president of the Linnæan Society (1788).--ED.
[032] Charles Schultz, Jr., was the author of _Travels on an
inland voyage through the states of New York, Pennsylvania,
Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and through the
territories of Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Orleans;
performed in the years 1807 and 1808_ (New York, 1810).--ED.
[033] On Louisville and the Falls of the Ohio, see Croghan's
_Journals_, in our volume i, note 106.--ED.
[034] For sketch of Shippingsport, see Cuming's _Tour_, in our
volume iv, note 171.--ED.
[035] For the history of the canal at the Falls of the Ohio, see
Nuttall's _Journal_, in our volume xiii, note 40.--ED.
[036] On Clarksville see André Michaux's _Travels_, in our
volume iii, note 123.--ED.
[037] New Albany, founded in 1813, is just below Louisville, in
Floyd County, Indiana.--ED.
[038] Corn Island was the site of the first settlement
at Louisville. George Rogers Clark built a fort on the island
in the spring of 1778, to protect his supplies. The twenty
families who had followed him to Kentucky established
themselves at the lower end, where the land was most elevated,
and during the summer raised the crop of corn from which it is
said the island derived its name. It stood just above the
present Louisville-Albany bridge, in the elbow of the stream;
in Clark's time it had an area of at least seven acres, but it
has now been almost entirely obliterated both by the erosion
of the stream and the operations of a neighboring cement mill
which has used the island as a quarry.--ED.
[039] Jeffersonville, laid out in 1802, is opposite Louisville,
in Clark County, Indiana.--ED.
[040] The same name is applied locally to the hills which extend
nearly fifty miles to the northward of the river.--ED.
[041] Volney.--JAMES.
_Comment by Ed._ Constantin François Chassebœuf Boisgirais,
Comte de Volney, the French traveller and author, member of
the brilliant group which included Holbach, Madame Helvetius,
Voltaire, and the encyclopædists, the correspondent of Franklin
and the friend of Bonaparte, travelled extensively in the
interior of America during the years 1795 to 1799, and after
his return to France published an account of his observations
under the title, _Tableau du Climat et du Sol des Etats-Unis
d'Amérique_ (Paris, 1803). A translation was published in
Philadelphia the succeeding year.
[042] The Indiana coal fields are now known to embrace an area
of about seven thousand square miles, chiefly in the southwest
quarter of the state.--ED.
{29} CHAPTER II
The Ohio below the Rapids at Louisville--Ascent of the
Mississippi from the mouth of the Ohio to St. Louis.[043]
Our small boat descended over the rapids without injury; and
having taken on board some wood near New Albany, we proceeded on
our voyage, with a pressure of steam equalling one hundred pounds
to the square inch, upon all parts of the engine exposed to its
immediate operation. This enabled us to descend, at the rate of
ten miles per hour. A small island in the Ohio, about twenty-three
miles below the rapids, is called Flint Island, from the great
numbers of fragments of flints, broken arrow points, and various
instruments of stone, heretofore used by the Indians, which are
found there on turning up the soil. This island has probably been
the favourite residence of some tribe, particularly expert in the
manufacture of those rude implements, with which the wants of the
aboriginal Americans were supplied. The stone employed in these
manufactures appears to have been, in most instances, that compact
flint, which occurs in nodular masses, in the secondary limestones.
In one instance we met with a triangular prism, of a very hard and
compact aggregate of felspar, and hornblende, unlike any rock we
have seen in the valley of the Mississippi. This prism was about
five inches long, with faces of about {30} an inch in width, and
was perforated, from end to end, forming a complete tube, with an
orifice about half an inch in diameter, and smoothly polished,
both within and without. We were never able to discover to what use
this implement could have been applied; nor do we recollect to have
met with accounts of any thing analogous to it, except, perhaps,
those "tubes of a very hard stone" mentioned by the Jesuit Venegas,
as used by the natives of California, in their treatment of the
sick.[044] That it may have passed, by means of the intercourse
of various tribes of Indians, from the primitive mountains of
California to the rapids of the Ohio, is not, perhaps, improbable.
Indirect methods of communication may have conveyed the productions
of one part of the continent to another very remote from it. The
savages of the Missouri receive an intoxicating bean from their
neighbours on the south and west; these again must probably procure
it from other tribes inhabiting, or occasionally visiting, the
tropical regions.
In the Philadelphia museum are many Indian pipes of that red
indurated clay, found only (as far as hitherto known) on the Pipe
Stone branch of the Little Sioux river of the Missouri; one of
these, however, was found on the banks of the Rio de la Plata, in
South America: several were found in the territory now called New
England, and in the north-eastern part of the continent.
On the 26th we passed the mouth of the Wabash, and arrived at
Shawaneetown,[045] ten miles below. Near the mouth of the Wabash,
an accident happened to the engine, which rendered it necessary
for us to drift down, until we should arrive at some place where
repairs might be made. Some of the gentlemen of the party
determined to go on shore, and walk to Shawaneetown. In swimming
across a creek, {31} three miles above that place, Lieutenant
Graham dropped his rifle in the water, and having spent some time
in attempts to recover it, did not arrive at Shawaneetown until
after the boat had reached that place.
On the 27th, several of the party went out to hunt in the forests
and swamps, north-west of Shawaneetown. At about four miles'
distance from the Ohio, they arrived at the banks of a small pond,
three miles long, and only three or four hundred yards wide. Here
they killed a turkey; and some small birds. On the bank of the
pond, was found a specimen of the Lake Erie tortoise,[046]
depositing its eggs in the sand, at about twenty yards' distance
from the water. It had made, with its feet, a hole in the sand,
two inches in diameter and four inches in depth, enlarging towards
the bottom to three inches. This species occurs frequently in the
pools and stagnant waters along the Ohio. We first met with it
near the rapids at Louisville. Among other birds, we noticed about
Shawaneetown, the pileated woodpecker, the minute tern, numerous
flocks of the psittacus caroliniensis, two broods of young wood
duck, some gulls, and semipalmated sandpipers. The terns appear to
be attracted hither by great numbers of a species of phryganea,
with which we found the stomachs of some of them filled. The
semipalmated sandpipers were in large flocks, and did not appear
stationary.
We left Shawaneetown at twelve o'clock on the 28th, and stopped
three miles below, to take in wood; then proceeding forward, at
four P. M. we ran aground on a sand bar, seven miles above the
"Cave Inn," or "House of Nature."[047] After much exertion, by
means of anchors and poles, with the aid of the engine, and all
the men, who were under the necessity of jumping into the river,
we at length {32} succeeded in getting her off, and ran down to
the cave, where we lay by for the night.
Early the next morning, we went to visit the cave, of the entrance
to which two views were sketched by Mr. Seymour. It is a
perpendicular fissure, extending about one hundred and sixty feet
into the horizontal limestone cliffs, which here form the north
bank of the river. At times of high water, the Ohio flows in, and
fills the cave nearly to its roof. In this cave, it is said, great
numbers of large bones were some time ago found, but we saw no
remains of any thing of this kind. Impressions and casts of the
shells of submarine animals are seen in the rocks, forming the
sides of the cave, as in all the strata of compact limestone, in
this region. The organic remains here, do not appear to be so
numerous as those of the rocks at the falls, and at Cincinnati;
and are much less distinct, and visible in the fracture; indeed
the fracture generally exhibits to the eye no vestige of organic
remains. It is upon the surface only, and more especially in such
parts of it as are in a certain stage of decomposition, that they
are at all to be distinguished.
As far as we could discover, they consist chiefly of the
caryophyllæ, similar to the radiated species, so common at the
falls of Ohio; of the encrinus, but of this our specimens were not
so perfect as to enable us to determine the analogy. Numerous
other remains were exhibited, but not sufficiently characterized
to be referred to their proper places in the system. The top of
the cliff, into which this fissure opens, is said to be the
favourite haunt of great numbers of birds of prey. This is not
improbable, as many hawks and birds of prey always choose high and
inaccessible cliffs to build their nests in. We saw about the tops
of these rocks, only one pair of hawks, which we took to be of the
red-shouldered species, (falco lineatus,) but a heavy rain, which
commenced soon after we had ascended, prevented {33} us from
procuring a specimen. About the cave, we found some fragments of
pottery, arrow points, and other articles of Indian manufacture.
Near Shawaneetown are extensive salt manufactories, at a place
heretofore called United States' Saline, affording employment and
a source of trade to a part of the inhabitants of that village.
Common salt, with the nitrates of lime, potash, &c. occur in great
plenty, in connexion with the horizontal limestones and sandstones
on the Ohio. Of these we subjoin some account, from the
mineralogical report of Mr. Jessup.[048]
On the 29th of May we passed the mouths of the Cumberland and
Tennessee, the two largest rivers, tributary to the Ohio. At the
mouth of the Cumberland is a little village called Smithland;
where, for a considerable part of the year, such goods are
deposited as are designed for Nashville and other places on the
Cumberland.
The Cumberland and Tennessee rivers are, for many miles, nearly
parallel in direction, and at no great distance apart. Between
them are some low sandstone hills; but, we believe, no lofty range
of mountains, as has been sometimes represented. About these
hills, also, in the low ridges north of the Ohio, we found the
sandstone, which appears to be the basis rock, often overlaid with
extensive beds of a pudding-stone, wherein pebbles of white,
yellow, and variously coloured quartz, are united in a cement
highly tinged by oxide of iron; extensive fields of compact
limestone also occur in the same connexion.
About half way between the mouth of the Cumberland and Tennessee,
near the old deserted settlement originally called Smithland,[049]
are several large catalpa trees. They do not, however, appear to
be native; nor have we here, or elsewhere, been able to discover
any confirmation of the opinion, that this tree is indigenous to
any part of the United States.
It is here called _petalfra_, which, as well as catalpa, {34} the
received appellation, may be a corruption from Catawba, the name
of the tribe by whom, according to the suggestion of Mr. Nuttall,
the tree may have been introduced. Following the directions of the
Pittsburgh navigator,[050] we kept near the left shore, below the
Cave Inn; by which means we again ran our boat aground, on a
sand-bar, where we spent a considerable part of the night in the
most laborious exertions. These were at length crowned with
success; and having the boat once more afloat, we proceeded with
greater caution.
On the 30th, we arrived at a point a little above the mouth of
Cash river, where a town has been laid out, called America.[051] It
is on the north bank of the Ohio, about eleven miles from the
Mississippi, and occupies the first heights on the former, secure
from the inundation of both these rivers (if we except a small
area three and a half miles below, where there are three Indian
mounds, situated on a tract containing about half an acre above
high-water mark). The land on both sides of the Ohio, below this
place, is subject to be overflowed to various depths, from six to
fourteen feet in time of floods; and on the south side, the flat
lands extend four or five miles above, separated from the high
country by lakes and marshes. The aspect of the country, in and
about the town, is rolling or moderately hilly, being the
commencement of the high lands between the two rivers above
mentioned; below it, however, the land is flat, having the
character of the low bottoms of the Ohio. The growth is
principally cotton-wood, sycamore, walnut, hickory, maple, oak,
&c. The soil is first-rate, and well suited to the cultivation of
all products common to a climate of 37 deg. N. lat. From the
extensive flat, or bottom, in its neighbourhood, and the heavy
growth of timber which here generally prevails, it is probable
that the place will be unhealthy, till extensive clearings are
made in its vicinity.
This position may be considered as the head of constant {35}
navigation for the Mississippi. The Mississippi, from New Orleans
to the Ohio, is navigable for boats of the largest size; and
America may be considered as the head of constant as well as heavy
navigation. Ice is seldom to be found in the Mississippi as low
down as the mouth of the Ohio, and never in so large quantities as
to oppose any serious obstruction to the navigation.
The navigation of the Ohio has a serious impediment about four and
a half miles above the town, occasioned by a limestone bar
extending across the river, called the Grand Chain. This bar is
impassable in the lowest stage of the water, and will not admit
boats of any considerable burden, except in the higher stages.
The Mississippi has, in like manner, two bars, called the Big and
Little Chain, which appear to be a continuation of the same range
of rocks as that in the Ohio, extending across the point of land
situated between the two rivers. These bars are situated a little
above the Tyawapatia Bottom, about thirty miles above the mouth of
the Ohio, and in low water have but a moderate depth of water
across them; which, added to the rapidity of the current,
occasions a serious obstacle to the navigation.
Boats suited to the navigation of both rivers above the bars here
specified, should be of inferior size; those for the Mississippi
not exceeding one hundred tons burden, and those for the Ohio from
fifty to seventy-five tons.
Any position on the Mississippi in the neighbourhood of the Ohio
would be objectionable, for the following reasons:--First, The
rapidity of the current, which renders it difficult to find a safe
and commodious landing, there being no rocky-bound shore within
thirty miles above and a far greater distance below the point. The
Iron Banks,[052] seventeen miles below the mouth of the Ohio, have
been thought by some an eligible position for the extensive
business, {36} which, it is admitted by all, must centre in this
neighbourhood. But at this place there is no safe landing; and
besides, the banks are composed of layers of sand and clay
alternating with each other, of an acclivity nearly perpendicular,
and annually wearing away by the current of the river, which sets
strongly against them. These banks are elevated about one hundred
and thirty feet above the common level of the river, and are
insurmountable, except by a circuitous route, leading from the
river a considerable distance above and below them.
Second, There are no positions on the Mississippi, except the Iron
and Chalk Banks, for a great distance below the Ohio, secure from
inundation. The bottom directly opposite the mouth of the Ohio, on
the west side of the Mississippi is elevated a little above high
water; but as it is an alluvial shore, having no permanent
foundation, and the banks often falling in, it affords no
conveniences or security as a place of business.
Third, No places of anchorage for boats of heavy burden are to be
found, except in the main channel of the river, where they would
be exposed to drift-wood, great quantities of which are brought
down in times of freshet; and when borne along with the rapid
current of the river, occasion serious danger to boats lying in
its way.
The town of America is almost entirely exempt from any of these
objections;--although it has not a rocky foundation, (which may be
said of most of the towns on the Ohio,) the current of the river
is so gentle, that no such guard against the undermining and
wasting away of the banks is required. In case of an excessive
flood, or an unusual quantity of floating ice (which may possibly
be apprehended in remarkably cold seasons), the mouth of Cash
river, five miles below the town, is a harbour in which boats may
lie in perfect security.[053]
We would not encourage the idea, that the site {37} now fixed upon
as a town is exclusively the point where business is to be done;
but that the town will eventually extend along on that side of the
river about four miles, to the Big Chain above described.
In view of the great extent of inland navigation centring at this
place, and the incalculable amount of products to be realized, at
no distant period, from the cultivation of the rich vallies and
fertile plains of the west, a great proportion of which must find
a market here, no doubt can be entertained that it will eventually
become a place of as great wealth and importance as almost any in
the United States.
In the afternoon of the 30th we arrived at the mouth of the Ohio.
This beautiful river has a course of one thousand and thirty-three
miles, through a country surpassed in fertility of soil by none in
the United States. Except in high floods, its water is transparent,
its current gentle, and nearly uniform. For more than half of its
course its banks are high, and its bed gravelly. With the exception
of about two miles at the rapids, at Louisville, it has sufficient
depth of water, for a part of the year, to float vessels of 300
tons burthen to Cincinnati. The country which it washes may, with
propriety, be considered under two divisions. The first, extending
from its head at Pittsburgh to the little town of Rockport,[054]
about 150 miles below the falls or rapids at Louisville, is hilly.
This district forms a portion of one of the sides of that great
formation of secondary rocks, which occupies the basin of the
Mississippi and its tributaries. This formation, like others of
the same period, is rough, with small elevations, which are most
considerable on its borders, and diminish in proportion as we
approach nearer its central parts.
Compact limestone, and sandstone of several varieties, are the
rocks which invariably occur along that portion of the Ohio we
are now considering. Sandstone of a light gray or ashen colour,
of a compact {38} texture, an argillaceous cement, and a slaty or
lamellated structure, is the most abundant, and occupies the lowest
points which we have hitherto been able to examine. This rock
frequently contains alternating beds of coal, bituminous shale,
and its accompanying minerals. The beds of compact limestone,
which occur in this region, usually rest upon the sandstone just
mentioned. Considered as a stratum, its distribution is the
reverse of that of the sandstone. It occupies the central and
least elevated portions of the formation; and on the borders where
the sandstone is most abundant, the limestone is of less extent
and of more uncommon occurrence. These remarks are applicable to
the hilly district on the upper portion of the Ohio river. From
Pittsburgh to Cincinnati, the prospect from the river is that
of hills of moderate elevation, sometimes rocky and abrupt, but
often sufficiently gradual in their ascent to admit of cultivation
to their summits. Their character, as to extent, direction, &c.
seems to be determined by the number, direction, and magnitude of
the streams which traverse them. They are the remains of what was
formerly a continuous and nearly horizontal stratum, with a large
deposit of superincumbent soil, which the flowing of water, during
the lapse of ages, has channelled and excavated to its present
form. These hills diminish in altitude as you approach the falls
from above; there they again rise to a height nearly equal to what
they attain at the head of the river, and from thence gradually
diminish, until they disappear, a little above the confluence of
the Ohio and Green[055] rivers. Here commences the low country,
which extends west to the Mississippi. It is characterized by
the great extent of the river alluvion, the increased width and
diminished velocity of the stream. The river banks are low, but
thickly wooded with sycamore, cotton-wood, river maple, the planera
aquatica, cypress, &c. The river hills, which terminate the
alluvial district, {39} are distant and low; and it often happens
that the surface descends on both sides, from the immediate banks
of the river to these hills. Hence, when the waters of the river
are sufficiently swollen to flow over its banks, they inundate
extensive tracts; from which they cannot return to the channel
of the river, and are left stagnant during the summer months,
poisoning the atmosphere with noxious exhalations. Many of these
inundated tracts have a soil of uncommon fertility, which it is
probable will hereafter be recovered from the dominion of the river
by dikes or levees.
The beach or sloping part of the immediate bank of the Ohio,
throughout its whole extent, is of rather gradual ascent, and
covered with timber a considerable distance below high-water mark.
The average rapidity of the current of the Ohio is about two and a
half miles per hour, and the descent of its surface nine inches
per mile, as estimated by Dr. Drake of Cincinnati. The annual
inundations happen in the spring. The range between extreme high
and low water, in the upper part of the river, is more than 60
feet; but below, where it is not confined by high banks, it is
much less.
About the falls of Ohio, the cane, (myegia macrosperma of Persoon,)
begins to be seen, and increases in quantity thence westward
to the Mississippi. The "Cave Inn Rock," or "House of Nature,"
which we have before mentioned, is an immense cavern penetrating
horizontally into a stratum of compact limestone, which forms
the river bank for some distance above Golconda in Illinois.
Its entrance is a large and regular arch, placed immediately on
the brink of the river, and a similar form is preserved in some
degree through its whole extent. The Battery Rock is a high mural
precipice of the same stratum, running in a straight line, and
forming the northern bank of the river which washes its base. The
face of this precipice is smooth and naked, and it is surmounted
{40} by a heavy growth of timber. This limestone is compact,
entirely horizontal in its position, and filled with organic
remains. It is traversed by veins containing sulphuret of lead;
and at several places near Golconda, this is accompanied by fluat
of lime, in beautiful yellow and violet-coloured crystals. Fluat
of lime is also found disseminated in small and irregular masses
throughout the rock. At Golconda, six miles below the cave, a
coarse gray flinty sandstone is found, extending some distance to
the west. This rock forms broad hills on the Kentucky side, between
the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers; where it abounds in iron ore
of several kinds. Perhaps these hills ought to be considered as
a spur from the Cumberland hills. At the mouth of the Tennessee
river, is a locality of the columnar argillaceous oxide of iron,
which rises from the surface in pyramidal and columnar masses,
somewhat resembling the cypress knees.
An extensive tract of land between the Tennessee and Mississippi
rivers, included in the recent purchase from the Cherokees,[056] is
rocky and broken, abounding in ores of iron and lead, and probably
some other minerals. We have seen a specimen of sulphuret of
antimony, in possession of an inhabitant, who being a sort of
alchymist, greatly delighting in mystery, thought it imprudent to
reveal the secret of its particular locality. It is to be hoped,
future and more minute examinations than we had the opportunity of
making, may hereafter detect valuable mineral depositions in this
tract.
The confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi, is in latitude 37° 22′
9″ north, according to the observations of Mr. Ellicott, and in
longitude 88° 50′ 42″ west, from Greenwich.[057] The lands about
the junction of these two great rivers are low, consisting of
recent alluvion, and covered with dense forests. At the time of
our journey, the spring floods having subsided in the Ohio, this
quiet and gentle river {41} seemed to be at once swallowed up, and
lost in the rapid and turbulent current of the Mississippi. Floods
of the Mississippi, happening when the Ohio is low, occasion a
reflux of the waters of the latter, perceptible at Fort Massac,
more than thirty miles above. It is also asserted, that the floods
in the Ohio occasion a retardation in the current of the
Mississippi, as far up as the Little Chain, ten miles below Cape
Girardeau.[058] The navigation of the Mississippi above the mouth
of the Ohio, also that of the Ohio, is usually obstructed for a
part of the winter by large masses of floating ice. The boatmen
observe that soon after the ice from the Ohio enters the
Mississippi, it becomes so much heavier by arresting the sands,
always mixed with the waters of that river, that it soon sinks to
the bottom. After ascending the Mississippi about two miles, we
came to an anchor, and went on shore on the eastern side. The
forests here are deep and gloomy, swarming with innumerable
mosquitoes, and the ground overgrown with enormous nettles. There
is no point near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi, from
which a distant prospect can be had. Standing in view of the
junction of these magnificent rivers, meeting almost from opposite
extremities of the continent, and each impressed with the peculiar
character of the regions from which it descends, we seem to
imagine ourselves capable of comprehending at one view all that
vast region between the summits of the Alleghanies and of the
Rocky Mountains, and feel a degree of impatience at finding all
our prospects limited by an inconsiderable extent of low muddy
bottom lands, and the unrelieved, unvaried, gloom of the forest.
Finding it necessary to renew the packing of the piston in the
steam-engine, which operation would require some time, most of the
gentlemen of the {42} party were dispersed on shore in pursuit of
their respective objects, or engaged in hunting. Deer, turkeys,
and beaver are still found in plenty in the low grounds, along
both sides of the Mississippi; but the annoyance of the mosquitoes
and nettles preventing the necessary caution and silence in
approaching the haunts of these animals, our hunting was without
success.
We were gratified to observe many interesting plants, and among
them several of the beautiful family of the orchidæ,[059]
particularly the orchis spectabile, so common in the mountainous
parts of New England.
The progress of our boat against the heavy current of the
Mississippi, was of necessity somewhat slow. Steam-boats in
ascending are kept as near the shore as the depth of water will
admit; and ours often approached so closely as to give such of the
party as wished, an opportunity to jump on shore. On the first of
June, several gentlemen of the party went on shore, six miles
below the settlement of Tyawapatia bottom, and walked up to that
place through the woods. They passed several Indian encampments,
which appeared to have been recently tenanted. Under one of the
wigwams they saw pieces of honey-comb, and several sharpened
sticks, that had been used to roast meat upon: on a small tree
near by was suspended the lower jaw-bone of a bear. Soon after
leaving these they came to another similar camp, where they found
a Shawanee Indian and his squaw, with four children, the youngest
lashed to a piece of board, and leaned against a tree.
The Indian had recently killed a deer, which they purchased of him
for one dollar and fifty cents--one-third more than is usually
paid to white hunters. They afterwards met with another
encampment, where were several families. These Indians have very
little acquaintance with the English language, and appeared
reluctant to use the few words they {43} knew. The squaws wore
great numbers of trinkets, such as silver arm-bands and large
earrings. Some of the boys had pieces of lead tied in various
parts of the hair. They were encamped near the Mississippi, for
the purpose of hunting on the islands. Their village is on Apple
Creek, ten miles from Cape Girardeau.
June 2d. As it was only ten miles to Cape Girardeau, and the
progress of the boat extremely tedious, several of the party,
taking a small supply of provisions, went on shore, intending to
walk to that place.
Above the settlement of Tyawapatia, and near Cape à la Bruche,[060]
is a ledge of rocks, stretching across the Mississippi, in a
direct line, and in low water forming a serious obstacle to the
navigation. These rocks are of limestone, and mark the commencement
of the hilly country on the Mississippi. Here the landscape begins
to have something of the charm of distant perspective. We seem
released from the imprisonment of the deep monotonous forest, and
can occasionally overlook the broad hills of Apple Creek, and the
Au Vaise,[061] or Muddy river of Illinois, diversified with a few
scattered plantations, and some small natural meadows.
About five miles above Cape Girardeau we found the steam-boat
Jefferson, destined for the Missouri. She had been detained some
time waiting for castings which were on board the Western
Engineer. Several other steam-boats, with stores for the troops
about to ascend the Missouri, had entered that river, and were
waiting to be overtaken by the Jefferson and the Calhoun, which
last we had left at the rapids of the Ohio. On the 3d of June we
passed that insular rock in the middle of the Mississippi, called
the Grand Tower.[062] It is about one hundred and fifty feet high,
and two hundred and fifty in diameter. Between it and the right
shore is a {44} channel of about one hundred and fifty yards in
width, with a deep and rapid current.
In the summer of 1673, Father Marquette and M. Joliet descended
the Mississippi, probably as far as the mouth of the Arkansa.
Their narrative contains sufficient evidence that they passed the
mouth of the Missouri, the Grand Tower, the mouth of the Ohio, &c.
As their work may not be easily accessible to many of our readers,
we subjoin, in a note, an interesting passage, in which these
objects are mentioned.[063]
The strata of sandstone containing the extensive beds of coal
which have been explored, about the Muddy river of Illinois, are
here divided transversely by the bed of the Mississippi. The Grand
Tower, the precipice opposite the mouth of the Obrazo,[064]
containing the singular cavity called the Devil's Oven, the
Cornice Rock, and other remarkable cliffs, are monuments
indicating the great extent to which the Mississippi has
channelled its bed in these strata of horizontal sandstone.
The Grand Tower, from its form and situation, strongly suggests
the idea of a work of art. It is not impossible that a bridge may
be constructed here, for which this rock shall serve as a pier.
The shores, on both sides, are of substantial and permanent rocks,
which undoubtedly extend across, forming the bed of the river. It
is probable, however, that the ledge of rocks called the Two
Chains, extending down to Cape à la Bruche, presents greater
facilities for the construction of a bridge than this point, as
the high lands there approach nearer the river, and are less
broken than in the neighbourhood of the Grand Tower. The Ohio
would also admit of a bridge at the chains, which appear to be a
continuation of the range of rocks here mentioned, crossing that
river fifteen miles above its confluence with the Mississippi. We
look forward to the time when these great works will be completed.
{45} Compact and sparry limestones are frequent in this region; but
all the rocks seem to be acted upon with great rapidity by currents
of water. The country on the east side of the Mississippi, back
of Fort Chartres, and about the river St. Mary, is much broken by
sink holes, having the form of a funnel, and occasioned, probably,
by the action of subterraneous streams of water finding their way
through the friable sandstones, which underlay the deep and fertile
soils in those places. We passed in succession the mouths of the
river St. Mary, opposite to which is the fine settlement of the
Bois Broule bottoms; the Ocoa, or Kaskaskia river; the St. Lora,
a handsome stream, from the west; and the Gabaree Creek, on which
stands the old French town of St. Genevieve.[065] The navigation
of the Mississippi, above the mouth of the Ohio, is at all times
difficult. The current is considerably accelerated by the descent
of the river over the rocky traverses which cross its bed. At times
of low water, innumerable sand-bars occur in various parts of the
channel, rendering the navigation extremely precarious.
A little below the mouth of the Kaskaskia, is a creek called the
Saline, entering on the west side. A grant of a tract of land, one
league square, was here made by the Spanish government, in favour
of a Frenchman named Pegreau, the founder of the deserted town
called New Bourbon.[066] The tract included a valuable brine
spring, near the mouth of the creek. The proprietor built a house
near the bank of the Mississippi, where he resided for some time,
and carried on a manufacture of salt; but having occasion to go to
France, he rented his works to a man, who for want of funds, or
for some other reason, failed to keep them in operation. After the
transfer of Louisiana to the United States' Government, this
grant, among others, became an object of speculation; and
advantage being taken of Pegreau's absence, the worthless tenant
was instigated {46} to prosecute his landlord for breach of
contract, and by a legal process recovered damages to the amount
of nine thousand dollars, for the disbursement of which the
property was sold, and fell into the hands of the present
proprietors.
At the mouth of the Kaskaskia river, on the east bank of the
Mississippi, a town has been recently commenced, called Portland.
The high lands approach here to the brink of the river, affording
an elevated and advantageous site. The landing is said to be good;
and there is reason to expect that Portland will soon rival the
old town of Kaskaskia, the present seat of a great portion of the
mercantile business in this part of Illinois.[067]
On the 5th the wind blew from the south-east, and with the aid of
sails, we were enabled to ascend the river with considerable
rapidity. As we were proceeding briskly forward, our boat struck
upon one of those concealed trunks of trees so frequent in the
Mississippi, and soon afterwards we discovered that a leak had
occurred, which made it necessary for us to lie by. By the
constant use of the pumps during the remainder of the day, and the
following night, we were able to prevent the water from gaining
further upon us; and the next day, having discovered the leak, we
raised the stern of the boat, by means of a pair of shears, and
succeeded in repairing the injury.
On the beach, opposite the place where we lay by for these
repairs, was a large flock of pelicans, which remained in sight
for several hours. We had met with some wild geese; and a swan,
which we saw was unable to fly, having at that time cast its
feathers. The yellow-breasted chat, chuck-wills-widow, the falco
haliatus, the kingfisher, bank swallow, and numerous other birds,
occurred.
At the mouth of the Kaskaskia river, on the east side of the
Mississippi, commences the celebrated valley called the American
Bottom, extending along {47} the eastern bank of the river last
mentioned to the Piasa hills, four miles above the mouth of the
Missouri. It is several miles in width, and has a soil of
astonishing fertility, consisting of comparatively recent
depositions from the river. It has all the disadvantages usually
attending tracts of recent river alluvion, the most valuable parts
of it being liable to be swept away by the current of the
Mississippi, and its surface descending from the brink of the
river to the stagnant pools and lagoons, at the outskirts of the
valley. But the inexhaustible fertility of its soil makes amends
for the insalubrity of the air, and the inconveniences of a flat
and marshy situation; and this valley is undoubtedly destined to
become one of the most populous parts of America. We were formerly
shown here a field that had been cultivated, without manure, one
hundred years in succession, and which, when we saw it (in August,
1819) was covered with a very luxuriant growth of corn.
The town of Kaskaskia, the villages of Prairie de Roches, Kahokia,
Prairie du Pont, Harrisonville, and Fort Chartres, are situate in
this tract. Some of them are in a flourishing condition. Fort
Chartres, which was built by the French government, at the expense
of one million and a half of dollars, stood near the bank of the
river, about twenty miles from Kaskaskia. Not long after they were
erected, a part of the works were undermined by the washing of the
river; since which time the whole has been suffered to remain in
ruins, which are now one-fourth of a mile distant from the
river.[068]
The country west of the Mississippi, opposite the American Bottom,
is of a very different character. The high lands approach the
river, presenting abrupt declivities, prominent points, and in
many places perpendicular precipices from one to two hundred {48}
feet high, frowning over the brink of the river. One of the most
remarkable of these is known by the name of the Cornice Rock. It
bounds a narrow arm of the river, which has generally sufficient
water to admit the passage of boats. The rock extends nearly in a
straight line, having a front of about four hundred yards, the
brow of the precipice at some points impending over the channel
through which boats pass. The rock rises above, to the height of
fifty or sixty feet, smoothly rounded by the attrition of the
water, which never rising to the upper part of the precipice,
leaves that to project in the form of a cornice. Though the lands
on the west side of the Mississippi are less fertile than those of
the American Bottom, they are of great value, and have long been
objects of scandalous speculation.
Among a variety of stratagems, practised in this part of the
country to obtain titles to lands, was one which will be best
explained by the following anecdote, related to us by a
respectable citizen of St. Genevieve. Preparatory to taking
possession of Louisiana in 1805, the legislature passed a law,
authorising a claim to one section of land, in favour of any
person who should have actually made _improvements_, in any part
of the same, previous to the year 1804. Commissioners were
appointed to settle all claims of this description; more commonly
known by the name of improvement rights. A person, somewhere in
the county of Cape Girardeau, being desirous of establishing a
claim of this kind to a tract of land, adopted the following
method:--The time having expired for the establishment of a right,
agreeably to the spirit of the law, he took with him two witnesses
to the favourite spot, on which he wished to establish his claim,
and in their presence marked two trees, standing on opposite sides
of a spring; one with the figures 1803, the other 1804, and placed
a stalk of growing corn in the spring. He then brought the
witnesses before the commissioners, who upon their {49}
declaration, that they had seen corn growing at the place
specified, in the spring between 1803 and 1804, admitted the claim
of the applicant, and gave him a title to the land. In the old
district of Cape Girardeau, as in other parts of Louisiana, the
difficulty of establishing indisputable titles to the lands,
arising out of the great number of Spanish grants, pre-emption,
and improvement claims, has greatly retarded the settlement of the
country.[069] Establishments were made here more than one hundred
and fifty years since; yet the features of the country are little
changed, retaining the rudeness and gloominess of the original
forest.[070]
At five o'clock, on the afternoon of the sixth, we passed the
Platteen rock, a perpendicular precipice, not unlike the Cornice
rock, near the mouth of a creek of the same name. Along the base
of this cliff, we found the water three and sometimes four fathoms
deep. In the evening we arrived at Herculaneum, a small village on
the west side of the Mississippi, depending principally upon the
lead mines for its business.[071]
Here are three shot manufactories, all of them built at the
summits of perpendicular precipices; by which means, the expense
of erecting high towers has been avoided. Thirty or forty miles to
the south-west of Herculaneum, commences the region of the lead
mines, which, though not yet satisfactorily explored, is known to
extend for many miles through the hilly country, at the sources of
the Merameg, the St. Francis, and the other small rivers, rising
in the angle between the Mississippi and Missouri, below the mouth
of the latter river.
Soon after the cession of Louisiana to the United States,
particular care was taken to have all claims to land investigated
and registered. Some few {50} may have been omitted, which may be
hereafter revived, but these cannot be numerous. In all the recent
sales of public lands in the western states and territories,
liberal reservations have been made for the encouragement of
learning. We subjoin some particulars, extracted from a
communication of the commissioner of public lands. From this
statement, it will be easy to form an idea of the liberal
provision made by government, for the future support of schools
and colleges. It is probable, similar grants will be made to the
Eastern States.[072]
On the 7th, after taking in wood at Herculaneum, we moved up the
river; but had scarcely passed the mouth of the Merameg,[073] when
we found ourselves unable to stem the heavy current of the
Mississippi, on account of the great quantities of mud that had
accumulated in the boilers, and prevented our raising the
requisite pressure of steam. While we were lying at anchor, to
afford the steam engineer an opportunity to clean the boilers,
some gentlemen of the party returned along shore to the Merameg, a
beautiful river, whose limpid and transparent waters present a
striking contrast to the yellow and turbid Mississippi. They were
fortunate in meeting with many interesting objects, and, among
others, an undescribed mus, which has received, from Mr. Ord, the
name of floridanus.[074] Upon the specimen, which was a male, was
a dilated, glabrous, ventral line, 2-1/4 inches long. This species
is well known in some districts, under the name of large
hairy-tailed rat, and is by no means rare in Florida. It is as
large as the ordinary stature of the Norway rat, and is equally
troublesome. The contents of its stomach were entirely vegetable,
consisting of the green bark of trees, and the young shoots of
plants. Their nests are large, and are composed of a great
quantity of brush. Dr. Baldwin had rarely been able to join in the
excursions on shore. Plants were, however, collected and brought
to him on board the boat, {51} where he spent much of his time in
the examination of such as were interesting or new.[075]
A few rods above our anchoring ground, were two graves, supposed
to be those of Indians. One of them was quite recent, and both
were covered with heaps of loose stones, probably designed as
monuments, and to protect the graves from the ravages of wolves or
other animals. The eighth of June brought us to the small village
of Vide Poche,[076] and the following day to St. Louis, where our
arrival was noticed by a salute from a six-pounder on the bank of
the river, and the discharge of ordnance on board several of the
steam-boats lying in front of the town.
FOOTNOTES:
[043] Observations were made, at Shippingsport, to ascertain the
rate of going of our chronometer, the latitude of the place, and
for other purposes; according to these, the Falls are in 38° 15′
23″ N.--JAMES.
_Comment by Ed._ The latitude is 38° 15′ 8″.
[044] Page 108.--JAMES.
_Comment by Ed._ Miguel Venegas, a native of Mexico, was born
in 1680, joined the Jesuit order in 1700, and after several
years' service as professor of Latin, rhetoric, and theology,
went out as a missionary to the Indians. His chief work was,
_Noticia de la California y su Conquista temporal y espiritual
hasta el tiempo presente_ (Madrid, 3 vols., 1757). Its
importance as a contemporary account of the native tribes and
mission stations of California is attested by the fact that
translations were promptly made into English, French, and
Dutch. The English edition is entitled _Natural and Civil
History of California_ (London, 2 vols., 1759).
[045] For historical importance of the Wabash River and origin
of the name, see Croghan's _Journals_, in our volume i, note
107; for sketch of the site of Shawneetown, see _ibid._, note
108.--ED.
[046] Testudo geographica of Leseuer.--JAMES.
[047] Usually called Cave-in-Rock. For additional facts relative
to its history, see Cuming's _Tour_, in our volume iv, note
180.--ED.
[048] _Nitrate of Potash._--This salt occurs in most of the
caves in the western states and territories. It is found in
efflorescences and incrustations frequently combined with
nitrate of lime. Its colour is grayish or yellowish white. The
manufacture of nitre, in the numerous caves in Kentucky, is
conducted as follows: The earths containing the nitrates of lime
and potash are lixiviated; the lixivium is afterwards passed
through the ashes of wood, by the alkali of which the nitrate of
lime is decomposed. If the earths, after having been lixiviated,
are replaced in the caves, they again become impregnated with
the same salts.
One bushel of earth commonly yields from one to four pounds of
nitre. The process by which nature supplies the consumption of
this important article has not yet been discovered.
_Muriate of Soda._--In the United States, common salt has been
usually found in solution combined with the sulphates of lime,
magnesia, and soda, and with sulphuretted hydrogen gas. The
springs yielding the greatest quantity of salt, are those of
the Kenhawa, and Little Sandy rivers, the United States'
Salines near Shawaneetown, Illinois, Boon's Saline, near
Franklin, Missouri, and Lockhart's on the Le Mine river.
The Kenhawa salt-works supply about thirty thousand bushels of
salt per annum. The rocks about these springs belong to the
secondary formation, and are limestone, variegated sandstone,
and bituminous shale: we were informed that two hundred and
fifty gallons of this water yield one bushel of salt. At
the Salines of the Little Sandy, ten thousand bushels are
manufactured yearly. The waters, like those of the Kenhawa,
hold in solution muriate and sulphate of soda, sulphate of
lime, and probably a small portion of sulphate of magnesia.
Limestone and sandstone are the only rocks to be met with in the
neighbourhood. The United States' salines, near Shawaneetown,
produce at present about a hundred and thirty thousand bushels
of salt per annum; they formerly yielded more than two hundred
thousand in the same time. There are now seven furnaces in
operation: the water is procured from three wells, two of which
are rented by Major I. Taylor. At these works the salt water
formerly issued from the earth at the surface. A well of sixteen
feet deep brought the workmen to a spring, which now discharges
sixteen gallons of water per minute. Two hundred and fifty
gallons yield fifty pounds of salt. About one thousand yards
to the east of this well is a basin, or hollow, one hundred
and thirty-five feet in diameter. The soil in and about it is
intimately blended with fragments of earthen ware.
In the middle of this basin a well has been sunk, which
affords a more concentrated brine than that before mentioned;
one hundred and ten gallons yielding fifty pounds of salt.
In digging this well, the first fourteen feet was through a
light earth mixed with ashes and fragments of earthen ware:
the remaining fourteen through a bed of clay, deeply coloured
with oxyde of iron, and containing fragments of pottery. The
clay has something the appearance of having been subjected to
the action of fire. At the eastern side of the basin appears
to have been a drain for the purpose of conveying away the
superabundant water. In this drain, about four feet below the
surface of the earth, is a layer of charcoal about six inches
deep. The stones in the vicinity appear as if they had been
burnt. Four miles west of this point, a well has been sunk
sixty feet through the following beds.
First—— twenty feet of tenacious blue clay, at the bottom of
which they came to a small spring of salt water.
Second—— another bed of clay, of a similar character,
twenty-five feet thick.
Third—— a bed of quicksand, about ten feet deep; in which
they met with a large vein of salt water.
Bones of the mammoth, and other animals, were found both in
the clay and sand. The original reservation at these salines
comprised ninety-two thousand one hundred and sixty acres of
woodland, and was transferred from the United States to the
state of Illinois, at the time of the admission of the latter
into the union. The rents amount to ten thousand dollars per
annum.
_Nitrate of Lime_ is found in the calcareous caverns of
Kentucky, accompanying nitrate of potash, with which it is
intimately blended in the earth, on the floors of the caves:
it is also sometimes found in delicate accicular crystals,
shooting up from the walls and floors of the caverns.--JAMES.
[049] Smithland is now the seat of Livingston County. The
deserted settlement three miles below the mouth of Cumberland
River was laid out about 1800 by one Coxe; upon the failure of
his plans, the site was converted into a farm.--ED.
[050] See Cuming's _Tour_, in our volume iv, note 43.--ED.
[051] The correct name of this stream is Cache River. The French
explorers applied the term "cache" (hiding-place) to many
streams, probably because of articles hidden there by them. This
particular stream is about thirty miles long, being navigable
for small boats about a third of the distance.
The town of America was laid off in 1818, with the expectation
that it would attain considerable size. For two or three years
it grew rapidly; then low water uncovered a long bar which
excluded steamers from the landing, whereupon the town declined
and practically disappeared, the site now being occupied by but
one or two small dwellings.--ED.
[052] For a description of the Iron Banks, see Nuttall's
_Journal_, in our volume xiii, note 54.--ED.
[053] Although the range from extreme high to extreme low water
amounts to sixty feet perpendicular, in many parts of the Ohio,
it does not exceed twenty feet at this place, owing to the width
to which the Ohio spreads in this neighbourhood, when the river
is high. This may be considered a circumstance much in favour
of the place, when compared with the disadvantages most other
positions on the Ohio labour under, from inundation in high
water, and the difficulty of unlading in low.--JAMES.
[054] Rockport is the seat of Spencer County, Indiana, one
hundred and forty miles below Louisville, measured on the
river's course.--ED.
[055] Green River enters the Ohio from the Kentucky side,
thirty-five miles below Rockport.--ED.
[056] On Cherokee purchase, see Cuming's _Tour_, in volume iv,
this series, note 190.--ED.
[057] Latitude 36° 59′ 47.99″; longitude, 89° 9′ 31.2″.--ED.
[058] Schultz's Travels, vol. 2. p. 92.--JAMES.
[059] The cymbidium hiemale of Willdenow, which has been placed
by Mr. Nuttall under the genus corallorhiza of Haller, occurs in
the fertile soils of the Mississippi, with two radical leaves,
as described by the early authors. Mr. N.'s amended description
is therefore only applicable to the plant as it occurs in the
eastern states, where it is commonly found to have but a single
leaf.--JAMES.
[060] Tyawapatia (Tywappity, Tiwappaty) Bottom was the
name formerly applied to the flood plain on the Missouri side,
in the present Scott County. It extended from the mouth of the
Ohio to Commerce, near the site of which was the settlement
referred to. Americans began to enter the bottom as early as
1798, and in 1823 the town of Commerce was laid out on the
site of a trading post already twenty years old.
The name Cape à la Bruche is probably a corruption of Cape à
la Broche (spit-like). The point was also called Cape La Croix
(The Cross), which name alone survives. It is about six miles
below Cape Girardeau, on the same side of the river.--ED.
[061] The name Au Vaise is a corruption of Rivière au
Vase (Muddy River); the present name is Big Muddy. It enters
the Mississippi from the northeast, at the northwest corner of
Union County, Illinois, and boats ascend forty or fifty
miles.--ED.
[062] Opposite the town of the same name, in Jackson County,
Illinois.--ED.
[063] They left the Illinois about the middle of June. Of
the rocky cliffs below the confluence of that river, Father
Marquette speaks as follows: "Among the rocks I have mentioned,
we found one very high and steep, and saw two monsters painted
upon it, which are so hideous that we were frightened at first
sight, and the boldest savages dare not fix their eyes upon
them. They are drawn as big as a calf, with two horns like a
wild-goat. Their looks are terrible, though their face has
something of human figure in it. Their eyes are red, their
beard is like that of a tiger, and their body is covered with
scales. Their tail is so long that it goes over their heads,
and then turns between their fore-legs under the belly, ending
like a fish-tail. There are but three colours, viz. red,
green, and black; but those monsters are so well drawn that I
cannot believe the savages did it; and the rock whereon they
are painted is so steep that it is a wonder to me how it was
possible to draw those figures: but to know to what purpose
they were made is as great a mystery. Whatever it be, our best
painters would hardly do better.
"As we fell down the river, following the gentle stream of the
waters, and discoursing upon those monsters, we heard a great
noise of waters, and saw several small pieces of timber, and
small floating islands, which were huddled down the river
_Pekitanoni_. The waters of this stream (the Missouri) are so
muddy, because of the violence of its stream, that it is
impossible to drink of it; and they spoil the clearness of the
Mississippi, and make its navigation very dangerous in this
place. This river runs from the north-west; and I hope to
discover, in following its channel to its source, some other
river that discharges itself into the _Mar Marvejo_, or the
_Caliphornian Gulf_.
"About twenty leagues lower than the Pekitanoni, we met another
river, called the Ouabouskigon; but before we arrived there,
we passed through a most formidable place to the savages, who
believe that a _manito_ or devil resides in that place, to
deliver such as are so bold as to come near it. This terrible
_manito_ proves to be nothing but some rocks in a turning of
the river, about thirty feet high, against which the stream
runs with great violence." This is probably the Grand Tower.
"The river _Ouabouskigon_ (Ohio) comes from the eastward. The
_Chuoanous_ (Shawneese) inhabit its banks; and are so numerous,
that I have been informed there are thirty-eight villages of
that nation situated on this river."--JAMES.
_Comment by Ed._ James dates the start too early, for by
Marquette's account, it was near the end of June ("sur la fin
de Juin"); nor is James's version quite accurate. Compare the
French of Marquette's account in _Jesuit Relations_, lix, p. 138.
[064] Spelled also Brazos and Brazeau--a Perry County (Missouri)
tributary of the Mississippi.--ED.
[065] The Bois Broulé (Burnt Wood) Bottoms lie chiefly in Perry
County, Missouri. The tract is about eighteen miles long and
from four to six wide.
For Kaskaskia River and settlement, see André Michaux's
_Travels_, in our volume iii, note 132.
For Ste. Geneviève, see Cuming's _Tour_, in our volume iv, note
174.--ED.
[066] Among the nobles who fled from France during the
Revolution was the father of Charles Dehault Delassus, last
governor of Upper Louisiana under Spanish domination. The
elder Delassus came to Ste. Geneviève, and was placed in
command of a post established for him on a bluff overlooking
the river, two or three miles below the town; this post was
named New Bourbon (La Nouvelle Bourbon), in honor of the
fallen French dynasty. The town which grew up around it was
still in existence in 1812.--ED.
[067] Portland was one of many towns laid out along the
Mississippi by speculators who hoped that important cities
would arise on the sites chosen. This particular venture was
undertaken by a company organized in Cincinnati in 1819; but
inhabitants failed to come, and the buildings erected by the
promoters fell into ruins. The site was near the present town
of Chester; an Illinois state penitentiary now stands on the
spot.--ED.
[068] It is stated by Mr. Schultz that Fort Chartres, which
was originally built one-fourth of a mile from the river, was
undermined in 1808. Vol. 2, p. 37.--JAMES.
_Comment by Ed._ For Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, Cahokia, and
Fort Chartres, see André Michaux's _Travels_, in our volume iii,
notes 132, 133, 135, 136.
Prairie du Pont, one mile south of Cahokia, grew up about
a water-mill built in 1754 on a creek of that name, by
missionaries of St. Sulpice.
Harrisonville dates from the era of American domination. It
was laid out in 1808, and named for William Henry Harrison,
the governor of Indiana Territory, which then included
Illinois. It was, in early days, the county town.
[069] Ample information on the subject of land titles,
is contained in Stoddart's Sketches of Louisiana, pages
243-267.--JAMES.
[070] The statement here is not accurate. Marquette's
descent of the Mississippi was just one hundred and fifty
years earlier, and the French settlements in Illinois date
from the beginning of the eighteenth century; while Ste.
Geneviève, the first in Missouri, was not established before
1732.--ED.
[071] Herculaneum, laid out in 1808, was another of the now
extinct river towns. It was thirty miles below St. Louis, and
was at one time seat of Jefferson County.--ED.
[072] A _township_ is a square, whose sides (limited by true
meridians and parallels to the equator) are each 6 miles in
length: area 36 square miles, or _sections_, each containing 640
acres. Each township contains 23,040 acres. A _quarter-section_
is a square whose sides (bounded by meridians and parallels),
are each half a mile, and contain 160 acres. The corners of
each section are distinctly marked by the United States'
deputy-surveyors. The _sections_ are numbered from 1 to 36,
beginning at the N. E. corner of the township, and going from
right to left, to the N. W. corner; and then returning from left
to right to the east boundary of the township, and so on.
The act of February 22. 1817, authorizes the sale, in _half
quarter_ sections, or (80 acres) of the sections 2, 5, 20, 23,
30, 33, of each township. The subdivision of the quarter
section is made by true meridians.
The _section_ No. 16. in every township, is by law reserved
for the support of schools; the S. E. corner of that section
is the centre of each township. More than 60 million acres of
United States' land, have already been surveyed:--1/36 of 60
millions is 1,666,666 acres, reserved by law for the support
of schools. The section No. 16. will unquestionably be
reserved in all future surveys and disposals of public lands.
For colleges and seminaries of a higher grade, thirteen whole
townships have already been granted by the United States to
Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, &c. Thirteen townships are equal to
299,520 acres.
By section 2. of the act of April 18. 1806, relative to
Tennessee, 200,000 acres are in that state reserved for
colleges and academies.
The reservations for schools, colleges, &c. are--
Section No. 16. 1,666,666
Thirteen townships 299,520
Reservation in Tennessee 200,000
---------
2,166,186 acres;
which, at the minimum price established previous to the year
1820, of two dollars per acre, is $4,332,372.
The area of the whole state of Ohio (the eldest of the states
north of the Ohio) is about 25 millions of acres; of this
about 14,400 had been surveyed anterior to the late cessions,
which embrace the N. W. part of that state: 1/36 of 14,400,000
is 400,000.
The free spirit of Ohio, united with signal industry and
economy, has already given to section 16. in the surveyed
portion of the state, a value of at least four dollars per
acre, or of 1,600,000 dollars. There are instances, in which
section 16. in Ohio, is worth from twenty to thirty dollars per
acre.--_National Intelligencer of November 10. 1819._--JAMES.
[073] The Meramec River (the name is a corruption of an Indian
word meaning "Catfish") forms part of the boundary between
Jefferson and St. Louis counties, Missouri. It flows from the
southwest, its chief sources lying in Dent County, and is
navigable for steamboats for almost a hundred miles.--ED.
[074] _Genus Mus. L.--M. Floridanus, Ord, Say._ _Body_ robust;
_back_ plumbeous; sides, sacrum, and origin of the tail,
ferrugineous-yellowish; _fur_ plumbeous near its base; all
beneath white; _tail_ hairy, above brown, as long as the body;
_head_ plumbeous, intermixed with gray, gradually attenuated to
the nose; _ears_ large, prominent, patulous, obtusely rounded,
naked or furnished with obsolete sparse hairs behind, and on the
margin within; _eyes_ moderately prominent; _whiskers_, some
black, and some white bristles, elongated, longest surpassing
the tips of the ears, arranged in six longitudinal series,
superior labia, and those of the angles of the mouth, folded
into the mouth, and hairy within; _legs_ subequal, robust;
anterior legs with a few white projecting setæ near the foot
behind; _feet_ white; _toes_ annulate beneath, with impressed
lines, intermediate ones equal, exterior ones equal; shorter
thumb minute; _palm_ with five tuberculous prominences, of
which the anterior ones are placed triangularly, and the others
transversely; _nails_ concealed by the hairs; _posterior feet_,
inner toe shortest, 2d, 3d, and 4th subequal, the third slightly
longest, all beneath annulated; _nails_ concealed by the hairs;
_palm_ with six tubercles, of which the three posterior ones
are distant from each other. Entire length, from nose to tip of
tail, sixteen inches nearly; _tail_ seven inches, _ear_ rather
more than 9/10 of an inch long, greatest breadth one inch. From
tip of nose to anterior canthus of the eye, 1/20 inches. Length
of the eye nearly 2/5.--JAMES.
_Comment by Ed._ George Ord, a Philadelphia scientist and
writer, was known especially for his work in ornithology. He
was at one time a vice president of the American Philosophical
Society, and from 1851-58 was president of the Academy of
Natural Sciences at Philadelphia.
[075] Near the mouth of the Merameg were collected the
Rudbeckia _hirta_, and R. purpurea, a small white flowering
species of Houstonia, the Galium tinctorium Smyrnium aureum, a
phlox, a new species of potentilla, a conyza, the trifolium
reflexum, a beautiful aira, the campunula perfoliata,
diospyros virginiana, rhus glabra, and many others. _Dr.
Baldwin's MS. Notes._--JAMES.
[076] Vide Poche (Empty Pocket), more properly Carondelet, now
included in St. Louis, was at this time five miles south of the
original city. It is of about the same age.--ED.
{52} CHAPTER III
Tumuli and Indian Graves about St. Louis, and on the Merameg--
Mouth of the Missouri--Charboniere--Journey by land from St.
Charles, to Loutre Island.
Saint Louis, formerly called Pain Court,[077] was founded by Pierre
La Clade [Laclède] and his associates in 1764, eighty-four years
after the establishment of Fort Creve-cœur, on the Illinois river.
Until a recent period, it was occupied almost exclusively by people
of French extraction, who maintained a lucrative traffic with the
Indians. The history, and present condition of this important town,
are too well known to be dwelt upon in this place. Its population
has been rapidly augmented within a few years, by the immigration
of numerous families, and its wealth and business extended by the
accession of enterprising merchants and mechanics from the Eastern
States. As the town advances in importance and magnitude, the
manners and customs of the people of the United States, are taking
the place of those of the French and Spaniards, whose numbers are
proportionably diminishing. As this place seems destined to be the
depôt for such articles of merchandize, as are to be sent from
New Orleans to the upper rivers, it is unfortunate, that no good
harbour offers for the protection of boats against the impetuosity
of the current, and from the danger occasioned by floating ice.
In this respect, the site of a projected town, a few miles below,
has a decided advantage over Saint Louis, as it possesses a good
harbour. It was selected many years since, by some Canadian
Frenchmen, who formed a settlement there.[078]
The horizontal strata of limestone which underlay the town of
Saint Louis and the surrounding country, {53} have strongly
attracted the attention of the curious, on account of having been
found, in one or two instances, to contain distinct impressions of
the human foot. There is now in the possession of Mr. Rapp,[079] of
the Society of the Harmonites, a stone, which has upon its surface
marks that appear to have been formed by the naked feet of some
human being, who was standing upon it while in a plastic state;
also an irregular line, apparently traced by a stick or wand,
held in the hand of the same person. This stone was taken from the
slope of the immediate bank of the Mississippi below the range of
the periodical floods. To us there seems nothing inexplicable or
difficult to understand in its appearance.
Nothing is more probable, than that impressions of human feet made
upon that thin stratum of mud, which was deposited on the shelvings
of the rocks, and left naked by the retiring of the waters, may,
by the induration of the mud, have been preserved, and at length
have acquired the appearance of an impression made immediately
upon the limestone. This supposition will be somewhat confirmed,
if we examine the mud and slime deposited by the water of the
Mississippi, which will be found to consist of such an intimate
mixture of clay and lime, as under favourable circumstances would
very readily become indurated. We are not confident that the
impressions above mentioned have originated in the manner here
supposed, but we cannot by any means adopt the opinion of some, who
have considered them as contemporaneous to those casts of submarine
animals, which occupy so great a part of the body of the limestone.
We have no hesitation in saying, that whatever those impressions
maybe, if they were produced, as they appear to have been by the
agency of human feet, they belong to a period far more recent, than
that of the deposition of the limestone on whose surface they are
found.
The country about St. Louis, like that in the rear {54} of Fort
Chartres, and indeed like the horizontal limestone country
generally, abounds in sink holes sometimes of great depth. These
are very numerous, from five to seven miles back of the town.
They are in the form of vast funnels, having at the surface a
diameter of from twenty to fifty yards. Mr. Say descended into one
of these, for the purpose of ascertaining the medium temperature
below the surface of the earth. This sink opens at the bottom of a
deep ravine. It has two apertures near each other, through which
water is admitted, and each large enough to afford passage to the
body of a man. Within are two chambers from six to twelve feet in
breadth, and thirty-five feet long. At the bottom of the second
chamber is a pool of water rather difficult of access. In this
apartment the mercury stood at 60° fah.: in a shady part of the
ravine about twenty-five feet below the general surface at 75°.
The grassy plains to the west of St. Louis are ornamented with
many beautifully flowering herbaceous plants. Among those
collected there, Dr. Baldwin observed the aristolochia Sipho,
cypripedium spectabile,[080] lilium catesbeiana, bartsia coccinea,
triosteum perfoliatum, cistus canadensis, clematis viorna, and the
tradescantia virginica. The borders of this plain begin to be
overrun with a humble growth of black jack and the witch
hazel,[081] it abounds in rivulets, and some excellent springs of
water, near one of which was found a new and beautiful species of
viburnum. On the western borders of this prairie are some fine
farms. It is here that Mr. John Bradbury,[082] so long and so
advantageously known as a botanist, and by his travels into the
interior of America, is preparing to erect his habitation. This
amiable gentleman lost no opportunity during our stay at St. Louis
to make our residence there agreeable to us. Near the site
selected for his house is a mineral spring, whose {55} waters are
strongly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen gas. Cattle and
horses, which range here throughout the season, prefer the waters
of this spring to those of the creek in whose bed it rises, and
may be seen daily coming in great numbers, from distant parts of
the prairie, to drink of it.
Tumuli, and other remains of the labours of nations of Indians
that inhabited this region many ages since, are remarkably
numerous about St. Louis. Those tumuli immediately northward of
the town, and within a short distance of it, are twenty-seven in
number, of various forms and magnitudes, arranged nearly in a line
from north to south. The common form is an oblong square, and they
all stand on the second bank of the river. The statement given
below of their forms, magnitudes, and relative positions, is the
result of actual admeasurement taken with care, and with as much
accuracy as their present indefinite boundaries, together with the
dense growth of underwood, covering their surface, and tending to
beguile and obstruct the vision of the observer, will admit.
It seems probable these piles of earth were raised as cemeteries,
or they may have supported altars for religious ceremonies. We
cannot conceive any useful purpose to which they can have been
applicable in war, unless as elevated stations from which to
observe the motions of an approaching enemy; but for this purpose
a single mound would have been sufficient, and the place chosen
would probably have been different.
Nothing like a ditch, or an embankment, is to be seen about any
part of these works.[083]
Indian graves are extremely numerous about St. Louis, though none
are found in the immediate vicinity of the town: they are most
frequent on the hills about the Merameg and on the north side of
the Missouri. On the 12th June, Mr. Say and Mr. Peale, accompanied
by one man, descended the Mississippi,{56} in a small boat to the
mouth of the Merameg, and ascended the latter river about fifteen
miles, to a place where great numbers of graves have been
explored, and have been represented to contain the bones of a
diminutive race of men. Most of these graves are found near the
bank of the Merameg. They do not rise above the general surface,
but their presence is ascertained by the vertical stones which
enclose them, and project a little at either end of the grave.
When the included earth, and the numerous horizontal flat stones
are removed, we find the sides neatly constructed of long flat
stones, vertically implanted and adapted to each other, edge to
edge, so as to form a continuous wall. The graves are usually
three or four feet, though sometimes six feet in length. The bones
they contained appeared to have been deposited after having been
separated from the flesh, and from each other, according to the
custom of some tribes of Indians at the present day.
In the first grave opened by Mr. Say were found the fragments of
an earthen pot, and the bones of an infantine skull; the second
contained what appeared to be the remains of a middle aged man, of
the ordinary stature, laid at full length; the bones much
confused and broken. An inhabitant residing here informed them,
that many similar graves had been found along the summits of most
of the neighbouring hills. In one of these he had found two pieces
of earthenware, one having nearly the form of a porter-bottle; the
other with a wide mouth; but this grave contained no bones. After
spending a night at this place, they crossed the river to the town
of Lilliput, (one of the projected towns here has received this
name,) the place so often mentioned as the locality of the graves
of a pigmy race. Appearances here are in general similar to those
already described. One head that had been dug up was that of an
old person, in whom the teeth had been lost, and the alveolæ {57}
obliterated, leaving the sharp edge of the jaw-bone. From this the
neighbouring settlers had inferred the existence of a race of men
without teeth, having their jaws like those of the turtle. Having
satisfied themselves that all the bones found here were those of
men of the common size, Mr. Say and Mr. Peale "sold their skiff,
shouldered their guns, bones, spade, &c. and bent their weary
steps towards St. Louis, (distant sixteen miles,) where they
arrived at eleven o'clock P. M., having had ample time, by the
way, to indulge sundry reflections on that quality of the mind,
either imbibed in the nursery or generated by evil communications,
which incites to the love of the marvellous, and, by hyperbole,
casts the veil of falsehood over the charming features of simple
nature."
These graves evidently contain the relics of a more modern people
than those who erected the mounds.
On the summit of one of the large hillocks, near St. Louis, (No.
27. described in note 83) are several of these graves: we opened
five of them, but in one only were we fortunate in finding any
thing interesting, and all that this contained was a solitary
tooth of a species of rat, together with the vertebræ and ribs of
a serpent of moderate size, and in good preservation; but whether
the animal had been buried by the natives, or had perished there,
after having found admittance through some hole, we could not
determine. If they were buried by the Indians, they are probably
the bones of a species of crotalus, as it is known that many
Indians of the present day have a sort of veneration for animals
of that genus. The circumstance of the discovery of these bones
renders it somewhat probable, that rattlesnakes were formerly
worshipped by the natives of America, and their remains, like
those of the Ibis of Egypt, religiously entombed after death.
Whilst we were at Cincinnati, Dr. Drake exhibited {58} to us, in
his cabinet of natural history, two large marine shells, that had
been dug out of ancient Indian tumuli in that vicinity. These
shells were each cut longitudinally, and the larger half of each
only remained. From this circumstance it seems probable that they
had been used by the aborigines as drinking cups; or, consecrated
to superstition, they may have been regarded as sacred utensils,
and either used in connection with the rites of sacrifice, or in
making libations to their deities; they may, however, like the
cymbium of the Archipelago, have served a more useful and salutary
purpose in bathing.
One of these specimens seems to be a _Cassis cornutus_, of
authors, or great conch shell, though it is proper to observe,
that of the three revolving bands of tubercles, characteristic of
that species, the inferior one in this specimen is double. In
length it is about nine inches and a quarter, and in breadth seven
inches.
The other specimen is a heterostrophe shell of the genus _Fulgur_
of Montfort; and, as far as we can judge, in every respect the
same with those which are, at the present day, found on the coast
of Georgia and East Florida, known to naturalists under the name
of _F. perversus_, though it is certainly much larger than any of
the recent specimens we have seen; its length being nine inches,
and breadth six and a half.
Several different countries have been mentioned by authors as the
habitation of the _cornutus_; according to Rumphius, it inhabits
Amboyna, the straits of Malacca, and the shores of the island of
Boeton; Humphreys says it is brought from the East Indies and
China; Linnæus believed it to inhabit the coasts of America; but
Bruguiere, a more recent author, informs us that Linnæus was
probably mistaken in the habitation of this shell, and states it
to be a native of the Asiatic ocean.
The _cornutus_ becomes of some importance in the question relative
to the Asiatic origin of the American {59} Indians. All the
authorities to which we have been able to refer, correspond in
assigning the shores of Asia, or those of the islands which lie
near that continent, as the native territory of this great species
of conch, with the sole exception of Linnæus; but as no other
author has discovered it on the coasts of this continent, we must
believe with Bruguiere, that it is only to be found in the Asiatic
ocean.
The circumstance then of this shell being discovered in one of the
ancient Indian tumuli, affords, at least, an evidence that an
intercourse formerly existed between the Indians of North America
and those of Asia; and leads us to believe that even a limited
commerce was carried on between them, as it undoubtedly was with
the Atlantic coast, from which the Fulgur was obtained.
But although this isolated fact does not yield a positive proof of
the long asserted migration of the ancestors of the present race
of American Indians from Asia to this country, yet, when taken in
combination with other evidence, which has been collected by
various authors, with so much industry, it will be regarded as
highly corroborative of that popular belief.[084]
In the prairies of Illinois, opposite St. Louis, are numbers of
large mounds.
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/43751