ching that animal, which those who went up the creek
found, and which we presume to have been left by the Assiniboins. Its
water is impregnated with mineral salts, and the country through which
it flows consists of wide and very fertile plains, but without any
trees. We encamped at the distance of twenty-three miles, on a sandpoint
to the south; we passed in the evening a rock in the middle of the
river, the channel of which a little above our camp, is confined within
eighty yards.

Tuesday 16. The morning was clear, the wind light from the S.E. The
country presents the same appearance of low plains and meadows on the
river, bounded a few miles back by broken hills, which end in high level
fertile lands, the quantity of timber is however increasing. The
appearance of minerals continues as usual, and to-day we found several
stones which seemed to have been wood, first carbonated and then
petrified by the water of the Missouri, which has the same effect on
many vegetable substances. There is indeed reason to believe that the
strata of coal in the hills cause the fire and appearances which they
exhibit of being burned. Whenever these marks present themselves in the
bluffs on the river, the coal is seldom seen, and when found in the
neighborhood of the strata of burnt earth, the coal with the sand and
sulphurous matter usually accompanying it, is precisely at the same
height and nearly of the same thickness with those strata. We passed
three small creeks or rather runs, which rise in the hills to the north.
Numbers of geese, and few ducks chiefly of the mallard and bluewinged
teal, many buffaloe, elk and deer were also observed, and in the
timbered low grounds this morning we were surprised to observe a great
quantity of old hornets' nests: we encamped in a point of woods on the
south, having come eighteen miles, though the circuits which we were
obliged to make around sandbars very much increased the real distance.

Wednesday, April 17. We set off early, the weather being fine, and the
wind so favourable as to enable us to sail the greater part of the
course. At ten and three quarter miles we passed a creek ten yards wide
on the south; at eighteen miles a little run on the north, and at night
encamped in a woody point on the south. We had travelled twenty-six
miles through a country similar to that of yesterday, except that there
were greater appearances of burnt hills, furnishing large quantities of
lava and pumicestone,