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Journals of Lewis and Clark: Dates June 1804 - Part Three

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The Journals of Lewis and Clark: Dates June 22, 1804 - June 30, 1804
The following excerpts are taken from entries of the Journals of Lewis and Clark. Dates: June 22, 1804 - June 30, 1804

June 22, 1804
22d. The river rose during the night four inches. The water is very rapid and crowded with concealed timber. We passed two large islands and an extensive prairie on the south, beginning with a rich low land, and rising to the distance of seventy or eighty feet of rolling clear country. The thermometer at three o'clock P.M. was at 87°. After coming ten and a half miles we encamped on the south, opposite a large creek called Fire Prairie river.

June 23, 1804
23d. The wind was against us this morning, and became so violent that we made only three and a half miles, and were obliged to lie to during the day at a small island. This is separated from the northern side by a narrow channel which cannot be passed by boats, being choaked by trees and drifted wood. Directly opposite on the south, is a high commanding position, more than seventy feet above high water mark, and overlooking the river which is here of but little width; this spot has many advantages for a fort, and trading house with the Indians. The river fell eight inches last night.

June 24, 1804
The next day, 24th, we passed at eight miles distance, Hay Cabin creek coming in from the south, about twenty yards wide, and so called from camps of straw built on it; to the north are some rocks projecting into the river, and a little beyond them a creek on the same side, called Charaton Scarty; that is, Charaton like the Otter. We halted, after making eleven and a half miles, the country on both sides being fine and interspersed with prairies, in which we now see numerous herds of deer, pasturing in the plains or feeding on the young willows of the river.

June 25, 1804
25th. A thick fog detained us till eight o'clock, when we set sail, and at three miles reached a bank of stone coal on the north, which appeared to be very abundant: just below it is a creek called after the bank La Charbonniere. Four miles further, and on the southern side, comes in a small creek, called La Benite. The prairies here approach the river and contain many fruits, such as plums, raspberries, wild apples, and nearer the river vast quantities of mulberries. Our encampment was at thirteen miles distance on an island to the north, opposite some hills higher than usual, and almost one hundred and sixty or one hundred and eighty feet.

June 26, 1804
26th. At one mile we passed at the end of a small island, Blue Water creek, which is about thirty yards wide at its entrance from the south.Here the Missouri is confined within a narrow bed, and the current still more so by counter currents or whirls on one side and a high bank on the other. We passed a small island and a sandbar, where our tow rope broke twice, and we rowed round with great exertions. We saw a number of parroquets, and killed some deer; after nine and three quarter miles we encamped at the upper point of the mouth of the river Kansas: here we remained two days, during which we made the necessary observations, recruited the party, and repaired the boat. The river Kansas takes its rise in the plains between the Arkansaw and Platte rivers, and pursues a course generally east till its junction with the Missouri which is in latitude 38° 31' 13"; here it is three hundred and forty and a quarter yards wide, though it is wider a short distance above the mouth.

The Missouri itself is about five hundred yards in width; the point of union is low and subject to inundations for two hundred and fifty yards, it then rises a little above high water mark, and continues so as far back as the hills. On the south of the Kansas the hills or highlands come within one mile and a half of the river; on the north of the Missouri they do not approach nearer than several miles; but on all sides the country is fine. The comparative specific gravities of the two rivers is, for the Missouri seventy-eight, the Kansas seventy-two degrees; the waters of the latter have a very disagreeable taste, the former has risen during yesterday and to day about two feet. On the banks of the Kansas reside the Indians of the same name, consisting of two villages, one at about twenty, the other forty leagues [19]from its mouth, and amounting to about three hundred men. They once lived twenty-four leagues higher than the Kansas, on the south bank of the Missouri, and were then more numerous, but they have been reduced and banished by the Sauks and Ayauways, who being better supplied with arms have an advantage over the Kansas, though the latter are not less fierce or warlike than themselves. This nation is now hunting in the plains for the buffalo which our hunters have seen for the first time.

June 29, 1804
On the 29th, we set out late in the afternoon, and having passed a sandbar, near which the boat was almost lost, and a large island on the north, we encamped at seven and a quarter miles on the same side in the low lands, where the rushes are so thick that it is troublesome to walk through them.

June 30, 1804
Early the next morning, 30th, we reached, at five miles distance, the mouth of a river coming in from the north, and called by the French, Petite Riviere Platte, or Little Shallow river; it is about sixty yards wide at its mouth. A few of the party who ascended informed us, that the lands on both sides are good, and that there are several falls well calculated for mills; the wind was from the south west, and the weather oppressively warm, the thermometer standing at 96° above 0 at three o'clock P.M. One mile beyond this is a small creek on the south, at five miles from which we encamped on the same side, opposite the lower point of an island called Diamond island. The land on the north between the Little Shallow river, and the Missouri is not good and subject to overflow—on the south it is higher and better timbered.

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