[364] According to the geologist Featherstonhaugh, who examined the locality, this earth owes its color to a bluish-green silicate of iron.
[365] Besides the long and circumstantial Relation de Penecaut, an account of the earlier part of La Sueur's voyage up the Mississippi is contained in the Mémoire du Chevalier de Beaurain, which, with other papers relating to this explorer, including portions of his Journal, will be found in Margry, vi. See also Journal historique de l'Établissement des Français à la Louisiane, 38-71.
[366] Iberville à ——, 15 Février, 1703 (Margry, vi. 180).
[367] Bienville au Ministre, 6 Septembre, 1704.
[368] Beaurain, Journal historique.
[369] Hubert, Mémoire envoyé au Conseil de la Marine.
[370] Penecaut, Relation, chaps. xvii., xviii. Le Page du Pratz, Histoire de la Louisiane, i. 13-22. Various documents in Margry, vi. 193-202.
[371] For an interesting contemporary map of the French establishment at Natchitoches, see Thomassy, Géologie pratique de la Louisiane.
[372] Bénard de la Harpe, in Margry, vi. 264.
[373] Beaurain says that each of these bands spoke a language of its own. They had horses in abundance, descended from Spanish stock. Among them appear to have been the Ouacos, or Huecos, and the Wichitas,—two tribes better known as the Pawnee Picts. See Marcy, Exploration of Red River.