all of us; for the
imposthumes we use emollient poultices, and apply to the eyes a solution
of two grains of white vitriol and one of sugar of lead with one ounce
of water.

Saturday, 11th. The wind blew very hard in the night, but having abated
this morning we went on very well, till in the afternoon the wind arose
and retarded our progress; the current too was strong, the river very
crooked, and the banks as usual constantly precipitating themselves in
large masses into the water. The highlands are broken and approach
nearer the river than they do below. The soil however of both hills and
low grounds appear as fertile as that further down the river: it
consists of a black looking loam with a small portion of sand, which
cover the hills and bluffs to the depth of twenty or thirty feet, and
when thrown in the water dissolves as readily as loaf-sugar, and
effervesces like marle; there are also great appearances of quartz and
mineral salts: the first is most commonly seen in the faces of the
bluffs, the second is found on the hills as well as the low grounds, and
in the gullies which come down from the hills; it lies in a crust of two
or three inches in depth, and may be swept up with a feather in large
quantities. There is no longer any appearance of coal burnt earth or
pumicestone. We saw and visited some high hills on the north side about
three miles from the river, whose tops were covered with the pitch-pine:
this in the first pine we have seen on the Missouri, and it is like that
of Virginia, except that the leaves are somewhat longer; among this pine
is also a dwarf cedar, sometimes between three or four feet high, but
generally spreading itself like a vine along the surface of the earth,
which it covers very closely, putting out roots from the under side. The
fruit and smell resemble those of the common red cedar, but the leaf is
finer and more delicate. The tops of the hills where these plants grow
have a soil quite different from that just described, the basis of it is
usually yellow or white clay, and the general appearance light coloured,
sandy, and barren, some scattering tufts of sedge being almost its only
herbage. About five in the afternoon one of our men who had been
afflicted with biles, and suffered to walk on shore, came running to the
boats with loud cries and every symptom of terror and distress: for some
time after we had taken him on board he was so much out of breath as to
be unable to describe th