On the morning of the 25th, our little party, consisting of Captain Kearney, Lieutenant Swift, and myself, having taken leave of our companions, recrossed the Arkansa from Webber's, and proceeded on our journey without a guide.
Having mistaken the route we had been directed to follow, we were bewildered during a considerable part of the day, wandering about through a fertile country without settlements, and so covered with dense forests as to render the travelling exceedingly harassing. Towards evening we arrived at a settlement of Cherokees, where we engaged a guide to conduct us to the trace leading to the springs. For this service we paid him two dollars. At night we encamped in an open forest of oak, where we found a sufficient supply of grass for our horses. The hills south of the Arkansa range from N.E. to S.W., their sides are sometimes nearly naked, but more commonly covered with small and scattered trees. Several kinds of oak, and the chinquapin (castanea pumila, Ph.) attaining the dimensions of a tree, are met with in the sandstone tracts. We distinguished here, in the uplands, two separate varieties of soil. That just mentioned, based upon a compact hard sandstone, and bearing forests of oak, and another resting upon a white petrosiliceous rock, with fragments of which it is much intermixed. This latter is often covered {149} with pine forests. The most common species, yellow pine (P. resinosa,) attains unusual magnitude. The rigida, and some other species occur, but are not frequent. We also observed several species of vaucinum, the mitchella, the kalmia latifolia, hamamelis virginica? cunila mariana, and many other plants common to this region and the Alleghany mountains.
There are no settlements between those of the Cherokees about Derdonai on the Arkansa and the hot springs. The blind path which we followed traverses a rugged and mountainous region, having considerable resemblance, except in the want of parallelism in the ranges, to the sandstone portions of the Alleghanies. As the weather was rainy we felt the inconvenience of travelling in the wilderness and encamping without tents. On the 28th we arrived at the hot springs. The country near these, on the north and north-west, is high and rocky. The sandstone, which extends from the Arkansa to within a few miles to the springs, becomes, as you go south, something inclined, and apparently of a more ancient deposition, until it is succeeded by a highly inclined primitive argillite. Both these rocks are traversed by large veins of white quartz. They are inclined towards the south, and the argillite at a great angle. In some localities it is but indistinctly slaty in its structure, and its laminæ are nearly perpendicular.
It contains extensive beds of a yellowish white siliceous stone, which is often somewhat translucent, and resembles some varieties of hornstone. Its fracture is a little splintery, and sometimes largely conchoidal; it is of a close texture, but the recent surface is generally destitute of lustre. It is this rock which affords the stones called Washita oilstones. It may, with propriety, be denominated petrosilex. This name is, however, to be understood as having the application given it by Kirwan,[34] who uses it to designate the fusible varieties of the hornstone of {150} Werner, and not the several varieties of compact felspar to which it has been sometimes applied. In passing from the hot springs, north-east to the lead-mine country, about the sources of the Merimeg, this rock is found to be intimately connected, and to pass by minute and imperceptible gradations, into the flint rock of that district, which is decidedly secondary, and of contemporaneous origin with the compact limestone which it accompanies. About the hot springs it is not distinctly stratified, but occurs in very extensive masses, sometimes forming the body of large hills, and is marked by perpendicular seams and fissures, often placed very near each other.
The hot springs of the Washita are in north latitude 34° 31´, and west longitude 92° 50´ 45˝,[35] near the base of the south-eastern slope of the Ozark mountains, and six miles north of the Washita. They have been erroneously represented as the principal sources of that river, which are more than one hundred miles distant.[36]
We have been informed that these remarkable springs were unknown, even to the American hunters, until the year 1779. At that time, it is said, there was but one spring discharging heated water. This is described as a circular orifice, about six inches in diameter, pouring out a stream of water of the same size, from the side of a perpendicular cliff, about eight feet from its base. This cliff was situate then, as it is now, along the eastern side of a small creek, but was at a greater distance from the stream than at present. At another place, near the top of the mountain, which rises abruptly towards the east, the heated water is said to have made its appearance near the surface of the ground, in a state of ebullition, and to have sunk and disappeared again upon the same spot. It is probable these representations {151} are in a great measure fabulous; all we are to understand by them is, that the gradual augmentation of the thermal rocks, which are constantly forming about the springs, has changed the position, and perhaps increased the number of the orifices.[37]
These springs were visited by Hunter and Dunbar in 1804, and the information communicated by them, as well as much derived from other sources, together with an analysis of the waters, has been placed before the public by Dr. Mitchell.[38] They have been subsequently examined by Major Long, in January 1818, from whose notes we derive much of the information we have to communicate respecting them. They are about seventy in number, occupying situations at the bottom and along one side of a narrow ravine, separating two considerable hills of clay-slate. A small creek enters the ravine from the north by two branches, one from the north-west, and the other from the north-east, flowing after their union nearly due south, and blending with the water of the springs, increasing rapidly in size, and acquiring so high a temperature, that at the time of our visit the hand could not be borne immersed in it. After traversing from north to south the narrow valley containing the springs, this creek meanders away to the south-east, and enters the Washita at the distance of eight or ten miles. All the springs are within a distance of six hundred yards below the junction of the two brooks, and all, except one, on the east side of the creek.
We subjoin a note, containing some particulars observed by Major Long at the time of his visit in 1818.[39]