notice and hasten with becoming brevity to a conclusion of the task in hand.
The fourth day succeeding my departure I overtook a division of the caravan of mountain traders, numbering ten men and three waggons, with which I proceeded to the Big Timber of the Arkansas, distant about two hundred miles southeast from Fort Lancaster.
The country at this place, in the immediate vicinity of the river, is fertile and well timbered, but the prairies are slightly undulating, arid, and generally unproductive. The prevailing rock is exhibited in abrupt cliffs and bold escarpments from the hill-sides and banks of watercourses, and consists of various conglomerates, with limestone and sandstone; the latter being very fine-grained and admirably suited to the preparing of edge tools. I noticed indications of coal in some parts, and the usual quantity of saline efflorescences, particularly upon the south side of the river.
On the 10th of April, the caravan being augmented by an accession of three other waggons and several men, we again resumed our journey, and, on the 28th inst., struck the Santa Fe trail near the Crossing of the Arkansas, one hundred and ten miles below the Big Timber.
The geological character of the prairie and the river bottoms is much the same as that previously described, with the exception of a general scarcity of rock; though to the southward it is very sterile in appearance, and a continuous chain of hills, that in some places are mere knobs of naked sand entirely destitute of every semblance of vegetation, plainly points out the cheerless Ilanos of the Great American Desert.
Below the Big Timber the rank growths of absinthe, which have been heretofore so prevalent, almost entirely disappear.
The river gradually expands to the width of nearly two miles, forming several small islands, and scatters its waters in numerous channels, over beds of quicksand, so shallow and variable as to preclude the possibility of successful navigation.
Timber becomes very scarce, —so much so, that in many places it is difficult to obtain a sufficiency even for the camp-fires of travellers. The bottoms are usually broad and fertile, but possess a highly saline character.
One of the above, known as theBig
