Five miles more brought us to the banks of the Maramec river, where we arrived at dark, and prevailed with the ferryman to take us across, notwithstanding the darkness of the night, and the rain, which, after having threatened a shower all the afternoon, now began to fall. The Maramec is the principal stream of the mine country, and is the recipient of affluents, spreading over a large area. The aboriginal name of this stream, Mr. Austin informed me, should be written "Marameg." The ferryman seemed in no hurry to put us over this wide river, at so late an hour, and with so portentous a sky as hung over us, threatening every moment to pour down floods upon us. By the time we had descended from his house into the valley, and he had put us across to the opposite shore, it was dark. We took his directions for finding the house at which we expected to lodge; but it soon became so intensely dark, that we pursued a wrong track, which led us away from the shelter we sought. Satisfied at length that we had erred, we knew not what to do. It then began to pour down rain. We groped about a while, but finally stood still. In this position, we had not remained long, when the faint tinkling of a cow-bell, repeated leisurely, as if the animal were housed, fell on our ears. The direction of the sound was contrary to that we had been taking; but we determined to grope our way cautiously toward it, guided at intervals by flashes of lightning which lit up the woods, and standing still in the meanwhile to listen. At length we came to a fence. This was a guide, and by keeping along one side of it, it led us to the house of which we were in search. We found that, deducting our misadventure in the morning, we had advanced on our way, directly, but about fifteen miles.
July 27th. We were again on our path at a seasonable hour, and soon passed out of the fertile and heavily timbered valley of the Maramec. There now commenced a gentle ridge, running parallel to the Mississippi river for twelve miles. In this distance there was not a single house, nor any trace that man had bestowed any permanent labor. It was sparsely covered with oaks, standing at long distances apart, with the intervening spaces profusely covered with prairie grass and flowers. We frequently saw the deer bounding before us; and the views, in which we sometimes caught glimpses of the river, were of a highly sylvan character. But the heat of the day was intense, and we sweltered beneath it. About half-way, we encountered a standing spring, in a sort of open cavern at the foot of a hill, and stooped down and drank. We then went on, still "faint and wearily," to the old French village of Carondelet, which bears the soubriquet of Vede-pouche (empty sack). It contains about sixty wooden buildings, arranged mostly in a single street. Here we took breakfast.
Being now within six miles of the place of our destination, and recruited and refreshed, we pushed on with more alacrity. The first three miles led through a kind of brushy heath, which had the appearance of having once been covered with large trees that had all been cut away for firing, with here and there a dry trunk, denuded and white, looking like ghosts of a departed forest. Patches of cultivation, with a few buildings, then supervened. These tokens of a better state of things increased in frequency and value till we reached the skirts of the town, which we entered about four o'clock in the afternoon.
St. Louis impressed me as a geographical position of superlative advantages for a city. It now contains about five hundred and fifty houses, and five thousand inhabitants. It has forty stores, a post-office, a land-office, two chartered banks, a court-house, jail, theatre, three churches, one brewery, two distilleries, two water-mills, a steam flouring-mill, and other improvements. These elements of prosperity are but indications of what it is destined to become. The site is unsurpassed for its beauty and permanency; a limestone formation rising from the shores of the Mississippi, and extending gradually to the upper plain. It is in north latitude 38° 36', nearly equidistant from the Alleghany and the Rocky mountains. It is twelve hundred miles above New Orleans, and about one thousand below St. Anthony's falls.
No place in the world, situated so far from the ocean, can at all compare with St. Louis for commercial advantages. It is so situated with regard to the surrounding country, as to become the key to its commerce, and the storehouse of its wealth; and if the whole western region be surveyed with a geographical eye, it must rest with unequalled interest on that peninsula of land formed by the junction of the Missouri with the Mississippi—a point occupied by the town of St. Louis. Standing near the confluence of two such mighty streams, an almost immeasurable extent of back country must flow to it with its produce, and be supplied from it with merchandise. The main branch of the Missouri is navigable two thousand five hundred miles, and the most inconsiderable of its tributary streams will vie with the largest rivers of the Atlantic States. The Mississippi, on the other hand, is navigable without interruption for one thousand miles above St. Louis. Its affluents, the De Corbeau, Iowa, Wisconsin, St. Pierre, Rock river, Salt river, and Desmoines, are all streams of the first magnitude, and navigable for many hundred miles. The Illinois is navigable three hundred miles; and when the communication between it and the lakes, and between the Mississippi and lake Superior, and the lake of the Woods—between the Missouri and the Columbia valley—shall be effected; communications not only pointed out, but, in some instances, almost completed by nature; what a chain of connected navigation shall we behold! And by looking upon the map, we shall find St. Louis the focus where all these streams are destined to be discharged—the point where all this vast commerce must centre, and where the wealth flowing from these prolific sources must pre-eminently crown her the queen of the west.
My attention was called to two large mounds, on the western bank of the Mississippi, a short distance above St. Louis. I have no hesitation in expressing the opinion that they are geological, and not artificial. Indian bodies have been buried in their sides, precisely as they are often buried by the natives in other elevated grounds, for which they have a preference. But the mounds themselves consist of sand, boulders, pebbles, and other drift materials, such as are common to undisturbed positions in the Mississippi valley generally.
Another subject in the physical geography of the country attracted my notice, the moment the river fell low enough to expose its inferior shores, spits, and sand-bars. It is the progressive diffusion of its detritus from superior to inferior positions in its length. Among this transported material I observed numerous small fragments of those agates, and other silicious minerals of the quartz family, which characterize the broad diluvial tracts about its sources and upper portions.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] I found fifty steamers of all sizes on the Mississippi and its tributaries, of which a list is published in the Appendix.