and moving towards the south; the catfish are small, and not in such plenty as we had found them below this place.  We passed several sandbars, which make the river very shallow and about a mile in width, and encamped on the south, at the distance of eleven and a half miles.  On each side the shore is lined with hard rough gulleystones, rolled from the hills and small brooks.  The most common timber is the cedar, though, in the prairies, there are great quantities of the prickly pear.  From this place we passed several sandbars, which make the river shallow, and about a mile in width.  At the distance of eleven and a half miles, we encamped on the north at the lower point of an ancient island, which has since been connected with the main land by the filling up of the northern channel, and is now covered with cottonwood.  We here saw some tracks of Indians, but they appeared three or four weeks old.  This day was warm.

September 22.  A thick fog detained us until seven o’clock; our course was through inclined prairies on each side of the river, crowded with buffaloe.  We halted at a point on the north side, near a high bluff on the south, and took a meridian altitude, which gave us the latitude of 44 degrees 11’ 33-3/10”.  On renewing our course, we reached first a small island on the south, at the distance of four and a half miles, immediately above which is another island opposite to a creek fifteen yards wide.  This creek, and the two islands, one of which is half a mile long, and the second three miles, are called the Three Sisters:  a beautiful plain extending on both sides of the river.  This is followed by an island on the north, called Cedar island, about one mile and a half in length and the same distance in breadth, and deriving its name from the quality of the timber.  On the south side of this island, is a fort and a large trading house, built by a Mr. Loisel, who wintered here during the last year, in order to trade with the Sioux, the remains of whose camps are in great numbers about this place.  The establishment is sixty or seventy feet square, built with red cedar and picketted in with the same materials.  The hunters who had been sent ahead joined us here.  They mention that the hills are washed in gullies, in passing over which, some mineral substances had rotted and destroyed their moccasins; they had killed two deer and a beaver.  At sixteen miles distance we came to on the north side at the mouth of a small creek.  The large stones which we saw yesterday on the shores are now some distance in the river, and render the navigation dangerous.  The musquitoes are still numerous in the low grounds.