[22] CHAPTER VIII [II]
Osage Orange—Birds—Falls of the Canadian—Green Argillaceous Sandstone—Northern and Southern Tributaries of the Canadian—Cotton-wood—Arrival at the Arkansa—Cane Brakes—Cherokees—Belle Point.
September 5th. The region we were now traversing is one of great fertility, and we had daily occasion to regret that our visit to it had not been made earlier in the season. Many unknown plants were observed, but their flowering season having passed, the fruit of many of them had ripened and fallen. We were deprived of the means of ascertaining the name and place of such as had been heretofore described, and of describing such as were new. We had, however, the satisfaction to recognize some interesting productions, among which we may enumerate a very beautiful species of bignonia, and the bow-wood or osage orange.[80] The rocky hills abound in trees of a small size, and the cedars are sometimes so numerous, as to give their peculiar and gloomy colouring to the landscape. We listened as we rode forward to the note of a bird, new to some of us, and bearing a singular resemblance to the noise of a child's toy trumpet; this we soon found to be the cry of the great ivory-billed wood-pecker (picus principalis), the largest of the North American species, and confined to the warmer parts. The picus pileatus we had seen on the 25th of August, more than one hundred miles above, and this with the picus erythrocephalus were now common. Turkies were very numerous. The paroquet, chuck-wills-widow, wood-robin, mocking bird, and many other small birds, filled the woods with life and music. [23] The bald eagle, the turkey buzzard, and black vulture, raven and crow, were seen swarming like the blowing flies about any spot where a bison, an elk, or a deer had fallen a prey to the hunter. About the river were large flocks of pelicans, with numbers of snowy herons, and the beautiful ardea egretta.
Soon after we had commenced our morning ride, we heard the report of a gun at the distance of a mile, as we thought, on our left; this was distinctly heard by several of the party, and induced us to believe that white hunters were in the neighbourhood. We had recently seen great numbers of elk, and killed one or two, which we had found in bad condition.
September 6th. Numerous ridges of rocky hills traverse the country from north-east to south-west, crossing the direction of the river obliquely. They are of a sandstone, which bears sufficient evidence of belonging to a coal formation. At the spot where we halted to dine, one of these ranges, crossing the river, produces an inconsiderable fall. As the whole width of the channel is paved with a compact horizontal sandstone, we believed all the water of the river must be forced into view, and were a little surprised to find the quantity something less than it had been almost six hundred miles above in the same stream. It would appear, that all the water which falls in rains or flows from springs in an extent of country larger than Pennsylvania, is not sufficient to supply the evaporation of so extensive a surface of naked and heated sands.
If the river of which we speak should at any season of the year contain water enough for the purposes of navigation, it is probable the fall occasioned by the rocky traverse above mentioned will be sufficient to prevent the passage upwards. The point is a remarkable one, as being the locality of a rare and beautiful variety of sandstone. The rock which appears in the bed of the river is a compact slaty [24] sandstone, of a deep green colour, resembling some varieties of chloritic slate.
Whether the colour depends upon epidote, chlorite, or some other substance, we were not able to determine. The sandstone is micaceous, but the particles of mica, as well as those of the other integrant minerals, are very minutely divided. The same rock, as we found by tracing it to some distance, becomes of a light grey colour, and contains extensive beds of bituminous clay-slate. Its stratifications are so little inclined, that their dip cannot be estimated by the eye.
This point, though scarce deserving the name of a cataract, is so marked by the occurrence of a peculiar bed of rocks crossing the river, and by the rapid descent of the current, that it may be readily recognized by any who shall pass that way hereafter. In this view we attach some importance to it, as the only spot in a distance of six hundred miles we can hope to identify by description. In ascending, when the traveller arrives at this point, he has little to expect beyond, but sandy wastes and thirsty inhospitable steppes. The skirts of the hilly and wooded region extend to a distance of fifty or sixty miles above, but even this district is indifferently supplied with water. Beyond commences the wide sandy desert, stretching westward to the base of the Rocky Mountains. We have little apprehension of giving too unfavourable an account of this portion of the country. Though the soil is in some places fertile, the want of timber, of navigable streams, and of water for the necessities of life, render it an unfit residence for any but a nomade population. The traveller who shall at any time have traversed its desolate sands, will, we think, join us in the wish that this region may for ever remain the unmolested haunt of the native hunter, the bison, and the jackall.[81]
One mile below this point (which we call the Falls or the Canadian, rather for the sake of a name than [25] as considering it worthy to be thus designated), is the entrance, from the south, of a river fifty yards wide. Its banks are lined with tall forests of cotton-wood and sycamore, and its bottoms are wide and fertile. Its bed is less choked with sand than that of the river to which it is tributary. Six or eight miles farther down, and on the other side, is the confluence of the Great North Fork, discharging at least three times as much water as we found at the falls above mentioned. It is about eighty yards wide. The beds of both these tributaries are covered with water from shore to shore, but they have gentle currents, and are not deep, and neither of them have in any considerable degree that red tinge which characterizes the Canadian. We have already mentioned that what we consider the sources of the North Fork are situated in the floetz trap country, nearly opposite those of the Purgatory Creek of the Arkansa.[82] Of one of its northern tributaries we have received some information from the recent work of Mr. Nuttall, who crossed it in his journey to the Great Salt river of Arkansa in 1819.[83] "Still proceeding," says he, "a little to the north of west, about ten miles further, we came to a considerable rivulet of clear and still water, deep enough to swim our horses. This stream was called the Little North Fork (or Branch) of the Canadian, and emptied into the main North Fork of the same river, nearly 200 miles distant, including its meanders, which had been ascended by the trappers of beaver." From his account it appears that the banks of this stream are wooded, and that the "superincumbent rock" is a sandstone, not of the red formation, but probably belonging to a coal district.