hundred
and seventy-six scuta on the abdomen, and seventeen half-formed scuta on
the tail. There is a heavy dew on the grass about the camp every
morning, which no doubt proceeds from the mist of the falls, as it takes
place no where in the plains nor on the river except here. The messenger
sent to captain Clarke returned with information of his having arrived
five miles below at a rapid, which he did not think it prudent to ascend
and would wait till captain Lewis and his party rejoined him.

On Tuesday 11th, the day when captain Lewis left us, we remained at the
entrance of Maria's river and completed the deposits of all the articles
with which we could dispense. The morning had been fair with a high wind
from the southwest, which shifted in the evening to northwest, when the
weather became cold and the wind high. The next morning,

Wednesday, 12, we left our encampment with a fair day and a southwest
wind. The river was now so crowded with islands that within the distance
of ten miles and a half we passed eleven of different dimensions before
reaching a high black bluff in a bend on the left, where we saw a great
number of swallows. Within one mile and a half farther we passed four
small islands, two on each side, and at fifteen miles from our
encampment reached a spring which the men called Grog spring: it is on
the northern shore, and at the point where Tansy river approaches within
one hundred yards of the Missouri. From this place we proceeded three
miles to a low bluff on the north opposite to an island, and spent the
night in an old Indian encampment. The bluffs under which we passed were
composed of a blackish clay and coal for about eighty feet, above which
for thirty or forty feet is a brownish yellow earth. The river is very
rapid and obstructed by bars of gravel and stone of different shapes and
sizes, so that three of our canoes were in great danger in the course of
the day. We had a few drops of rain about two o'clock in the afternoon.
The only animals we killed were elk and deer; but we saw great numbers
of rattlesnakes.

Thursday, 13. The morning was fair and there was some dew on the ground.
After passing two islands we reached at the distance of a mile and a
half a small rapid stream fifty yards wide, emptying itself on the
south, rising in a mountain to the southeast about twelve or fifteen
miles distant, and at this time covered with snow. As it is the channel
for the melted snow of that mountain