but always much higher than the country on either side.  They commence about the head of the Kanzas, where they diverge; the first ridge going westward, along the northern shore of the Arkansaw; the second approaches the Rock mountains obliquely in a course a little to the W. of N.W. and after passing the Platte above its forks, and intersecting the Yellowstone near the Bigbend, crosses the Missouri at this place, and probably swell the country as far as the Saskashawan, though as they are represented much smaller here than to the south, they may not reach that river.

Saturday, 25th.  Two canoes which were left behind yesterday to bring on the game, did not join us till eight o’clock this morning, when we set out with the towline, the use of which the banks permitted.  The wind was, however, ahead, the current strong, particularly round the points against which it happened to set, and the gullies from the hills having brought down quantities of stone, those projected into the river, forming barriers for forty or fifty feet round, which it was very difficult to pass.  At the distance of two and three quarter miles we passed a small island in a deep bend on the south, and on the same side a creek twenty yards wide, but with no running water.  About a mile further is an island between two and three miles in length, separated from the northern shore by a narrow channel, in which is a sand island at the distance of half a mile from its lower extremity.  To this large island we gave the name of Teapot island; two miles above which is an island a mile long, and situated on the south.  At three and a half miles is another small island, and one mile beyond it a second three quarters of a mile in length, on the north side.  In the middle of the river two miles above this is an island with no timber, and of the same extent as this last.  The country on each side is high, broken, and rocky; the rock being either a soft brown sandstone, covered with a thin stratum of limestone, or else a hard black rugged granite, both usually in horizontal stratas, and the sandrock overlaying the other.  Salts and quartz as well as some coal and pumicestone still appear:  the bars of the river are composed principally of gravel; the river low grounds are narrow, and afford scarcely any timber; nor is there much pine on the hills.  The buffaloe have now become scarce:  we saw a polecat this evening, which was the first for several days:  in the course of the day we also saw several herds of the big-horned animals among the steep cliffs on the north, and killed several of them.  At the distance of eighteen miles we encamped on the south, and the next morning,