64 deg..

We breakfasted the next morning at half-past five, and left our encampment
early. The morning was cool, the thermometer being at 45 deg.. Quitting the
river bottom, the road ran along the uplands, over a rolling country,
generally in view of the Kansas from eight to twelve miles distant. Many
large boulders, of a very compact sandstone, of various shades of red,
some of them of four or five tons in weight, were scattered along the
hills; and many beautiful plants in flower, among which the _amorpha
canescens_ was a characteristic, enlivened the green of the prairie. At
the heads of the ravines I remarked, occasionally, thickets of _saix
longifolia_, the most common willow of the country. We traveled
nineteen miles and pitched our tents at evening on the head-waters of a
small creek, now nearly dry, but having in its bed several fine springs.
The barometer indicated a considerable rise in the country--here about
fourteen hundred feet above the sea--and the increased elevation appeared
already to have some slight influence upon vegetation. The night was cold,
with a heavy dew; the thermometer at 10 P.M. standing at 46 deg., barometer
28.483. Our position was in longitude 96 deg. 14' 49", and latitude 39 deg. 30'
40".

The morning of the 20th was fine, with a southerly breeze and a bright
sky; and at seven o'clock we were on the march. The country to-day was
rather more broken, rising still, and covered everywhere with fragments of
silicious limestone, particularly on the summits, where they were small,
and thickly strewed as pebbles on the shore of the sea. In these exposed
situations grew but few plants; though, whenever the soil was good and
protected from the winds, in the creek bottoms and ravines, and on the
slopes, they flourished abundantly; among them the _amorpha_, still
retaining its characteristic place. We crossed, at 10 A.M. the Big