Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/230

 in succeeding ridges for 40 miles before us, and too confidently considering the proposed route impracticable, kept towards the west in direct opposition to our proper course, so that on the 16th, about noon, we obtained sight of Field's cove, which we ought now to have left, and crossing the Kiamesha, much too low down, found it running nearly due west, and very low. Our labour and distance was thus doubled, and we passed and repassed several terrific ridges, over which our horses could scarcely keep their feet, and which were, {162} besides, so overgrown with bushes and trees half-burnt, with ragged limbs, that every thing about us, not of leather, was lashed and torn to pieces. We now relinquished the mountains, and kept up along the banks of the Kiamesha, by a bison path, frequently crossing the river, which was almost uniformly bordered by mountains or inaccessible cliffs. Having killed a fat bison bull, we encamped at an early hour in a small prairie, in order to jerk or dry some of the beef for our future subsistence, it being now all the provision on which we had to depend.

All the rock we saw since our departure from Mr. Styles,' consisted of a fine-grained sandstone, with no inconsiderable dip, and, as far as visible, destitute of organic remains.

In a lake, about a mile from the Kiamesha, where we crossed it at noon, grew the Pontederia cordata, Nymphæa advena, Brassenia peltata, and Myriophyllum verticillatum, all of them plants which I had not before seen in the territory, and which I have found chiefly confined to the limits of tide water. In a northern bend of the Kiamesha, about 30 miles from its mouth, I am informed, there exists a very copious salt spring.

17th.] We still continued up the Kiamesha, over pine