egrees 42' 14" 7"'. As the canoes were still
heavily loaded all those not employed in working them walked on shore.
The navigation is now very laborious. The river is deep but with little
current and from seventy to one hundred yards wide; the low grounds are
very narrow, with but little timber and that chiefly the aspen tree. The
cliffs are steep and hang over the river so much that often we could not
cross them, but were obliged to pass and repass from one side of the
river to the other in order to make our way. In some places the banks
are formed of rocks, of dark black granite rising perpendicularly to a
great height, through which the river seems in the progress of time to
have worn its channel. On these mountains we see more pine than usual,
but it is still in small quantities. Along the bottoms, which have a
covering of high grass, we observe the sunflower blooming in great
abundance. The Indians of the Missouri, and more especially those who do
not cultivate maize, make great use of the seed of this plant for bread
or in thickening their soup. They first parch and then pound it between
two stones until it is reduced to a fine meal. Sometimes they add a
portion of water, and drink it thus diluted: at other times they add a
sufficient proportion of marrow grease to reduce it to the consistency
of common dough and eat it in that manner. This last composition we
preferred to all the rest, and thought it at that time a very palatable
dish. There is however little of the broad-leafed cottonwood on this
side of the falls, much the greater part of what we see being of the
narrow-leafed species. There are also great quantities of red, purple,
yellow and black currants. The currants are very pleasant to the taste,
and much preferable to those of our common garden. The bush rises to the
height of six or eight feet; the stem simple, branching and erect. These
shrubs associate in corps either in upper or timbered lands near the
water courses. The leaf is peteolate, of a pale green, and in form
resembles the red currant so common in our gardens. The perianth of the
fruit is one leaved, five cleft, abbriviated and tubular. The corolla is
monopetallous, funnel-shaped, very long, and of a fine orange colour.
There are five stamens and one pistillum of the first, the filaments are
capillar, inserted in the corolla, equal and converging, the anther
ovate and incumbent. The germ of the second species is round, smooth,
inferior and pi