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This morning Capt. Clark set out at sunrise, and sent two hunters ahead to kill some meat. at 8 A.M. he arrived at my camp of the 2ed inst. where he breakfasted; here he found a note which I had left for him at that place informing him of the occurences of my rout &c. the river continued to be crouded with Islands, rapid and shoaly. these shoals or riffles succeeded each other every 3 or four hundred yards; at those places they are obliged to drag the canoes over the stone there not being water enough to float them, and betwen the riffles the current is so strong that they are compelled to have cecourse to the cord; and being unable to walk on the shore for the brush wade in the river along the shore and hawl them by the cord; this has increased the pain and labour extreemly; their feet soon get tender and soar by wading and walking over the stones. these are also so slipry that they frequently get severe falls. being constantly wet soon makes them feble also. their hunters killed 2 deer today and some gees and ducks wer killed by those who navigated the canoes. they saw deer antelopes Grains beaver Otter &c.
2ed- A common Octant of 14 Inches radius, graduated to 20', which by means of the nonius was devisbile to 1', half of this sum, or 30" was perceptible by means of a micrometer. this instrument was prepared for both the fore and back observation; her error in the fore observation is 2°+, & and in the back observtion 2° r 1' 40.3" + at the time of our departure from the River Dubois untill the present moment, the sun's altitude at noon has been too great to be reached with my sextant, for this purpose I have therefore employed the Octant by the back observation. the degrees & ", recorded for the sun's altitude by the back observation express only the angle given by the graduated limb of the instrument at the time of observation, and are the complyment of the double Altitude of the sun's observed limb; if therefore the angle recorded be taken from 180° the remainder will be the double altitude of the observed object, or that which would be given by the fore observation with a reflecting surface.
The morning being fair and pleasant and wind favourable we set sale at an early hour, and proceeded on very well the greater part of the day; the country still continues level fertile and beautifull, the bottoms wide and well timbered comparitively speaking with other parts of the river; no appearance of birnt hills pumice stone or coal, the salts of tartar or vegitable salts continues to appear on the river banks, sand bars and in many parts of the plains most generally in the little revines at the base of the low hills. passed three streames today which discharged themselves on the Lard. side; the first of these we call little dry creek it contained some water in standing pools but discharged none, the 2ed 50 yards wide no Water, we called it Big dry Creek, the 3rd is bed of a conspicuous river 200 yards wide which we called little dry river; the banks of these streams are low and bottoms wide with but little timber, their beds are almost entirely formed of a fine brown sand intermixed with a small proportion of little pebbles, which were either transparent, white, green, red, yellow or brown. these streams appeared to continue their width without diminution as far as we could perceive them, which with rispect to the river was many miles, they had recenly discharged their waters. from the appearance of these streams, and the country through which they passed, we concluded that they had their souces in level low dry plains, which probably is the character of the country for a great distance west of this, or to the vicinity of the black hills, that the country being low on the same level nearly and in the same parallel of latitude, that the rains in the spring of the year suddonly melts the snow at the same time and causes for a few days a vast quantity of water which finds it's way to the Missouri through those channels; by reference to the diary of the weather &c it will be percieved that there is scarcely any rain during the summer Autumn and winter in this open country distant from the mountains.
The large feathers of the wings are of a deep black colour- the 1st & 2nd joint of from the body above the same is covered with a second layer of white feathers which extend quite half the length of those large feathers of the wing- the thye is covered with feathers within a quarter of an inch of the knee. Inch 1st joint of wing has feathers No. 21 Length 9 Black 2ed Do.
The mouth opens to distance of the eyes- The eye is full and projecting reather, it is 7/10 of half an inch. four joints in the wing Inches 1st joint from body in length 6 2ed Do. 81/4 3rd Do. 31/2 4th Do. 1 1st joint Number of feathers 7 Length of 3 2nd 18 6 3 6 from 10 to 12 4th 5 12
I think the flood of this spring has been about 12 feet higher than it was at that time; the river is here about 11/2 miles wide; it's general width from the beacon rock which may be esteemed the head of tide water, to the marshey islands is from one to 2 miles tho in many places it is still wider. it is only in the fall of the year when the river is low that the tides are persceptable as high as the beacon rock. this remarkable rock which stands on the North shore of the river is unconnected with the hills and rises to the hight of seven hundred feet; it has some pine or reather fir timber on it's nothern side, the southern is a precipice of it's whole hight. it rises to a very sharp point and is visible for 20 miles below on the river. at the distance of ten miles from our encampment we met with our hunters in the upper end of the bottom to which we had directed them on the South side of the river. they had killed three Elk this morning and wounded two others so badly that they expected to get them. we therefore determined to encamp for the evening at this place in order to dry the meat, in surch of which we sent a party immediately and employed others in preparing scaffoalds and collecting firewood &c against their return. we found some indians with our hunters when we arrived; these people are constantly hanging about us. As has been before mentioned Capt C set out with a party of seven men on 2ed inst. in surch of the entrance of the Multnomah river. he departed at 1/2 after 11 A. M and directed his course along the Southern side of the river. at the distance of 8 miles he passed the village of the Na-cha-co-lee tribe of the E-lute Nation; this village is not large and being situated on the main shore opposite to and S. of the Diamond Island it was concealed by that island from our view both ascending and decending the Columbia as we passed near the Northern shore.
we dispatched two men to inform the mandans, and if any of them chose to pursue those robers, to come down in the morning, and join Capt Lewis who intended to Set out with a party of men verry early, by 12 oClock the Chief of the 2ed Village Big white Came down, and Soon after one other Chief and Several men- The Chief observed that all the young men of the 2 Villages were out hunting, and but verry fiew guns were left,Capt.
Capt C. took the dementions of the hose of the Ne-mal-quin-ner tribe of the Cushhooks nation near which he encamped on the 2ed inst. and found it presisely thirty feet by 40 squar constructed with broad boards and covered with the bark of the white cedar or arborvita; the floor is on a level with the surface of the earth and the internal arrangement is similar to those of the natives of the Sea coast. these people carry on a trafic with the Killamucks of the coast across the mountains and by way of the Killamucks river from the Killamucks they obtain their train oil.
worthe of remark that Snakes are not plenty in this part of the Missourie Habits Measure From beak to toe 5 8 Tip to tip of wing 9 4 Beak Length 1 3 Do. Width from 2 to 11/2 Neck Length 1 11 1st joint of wing 1 1 2ed Do. 1 41/2 3rd Do. 7 4th do. 23/4 Length of leg including foot 10 Do. of thy 11 Discription of Colour &c
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