e me proper directions about hobbling my horse at
night, and imparted other precautions necessary to secure a man's life
against wild animals and savages. My St. Louis auxiliary stood stoutly
by me. If he had not much poetry in his composition, he was a reliable
man in all weathers, and might be counted upon to do his part willingly.

This journey had, on reflection, much daring and adventure. It
constitutes my initial point of travels; but, as I have described it
from my journal, in a separate form, it will not be necessary here to do
more than say that it was successfully accomplished. After spending the
fall of 1818, and the winter of 1819, in a series of adventures in
barren, wild, and mountainous scenes, we came out on the tributary
waters of the Arkansas, down which we descended in a log canoe. On the
Strawberry River, my ankle, which I had injured by leaping from a wall
of rock while hunting in the Green Mountains four years before,
inflamed, and caused me to lie by a few days; which was the only injury
I received in the route.

I returned to Potosi in February. The first man I met (Major Hawking),
on reaching the outer settlements, expressed surprise at seeing me, as
he had heard from the hunters, who had been on my trail about eighty
miles to the Saltpetre caves on the Currents River, that I had been
killed by the Indians. Every one was pleased to see me, and no one more
so than my kind Kentucky host, who had been the last to bid me adieu on
the verge of the wilderness.

CHAPTER IV.

Sit down to write an account of the mines--Medical properties of the
Mississippi water--Expedition to the Yellow Stone--Resolve to visit
Washington with a plan of managing the mines--Descend the river from St.
Genevieve to New Orleans--Incidents of the trip--Take passage in a ship
for New York--Reception with my collection there--Publish my memoir on
the mines, and proceed with it to Washington--Result of my plan--
Appointed geologist and mineralogist on an expedition to the sources of
the Mississippi.

1819. I now sat down to draw up a description of the mine country and
its various mineral resources. Having finished my expedition to the
south, I felt a strong desire to extend my observations up the
Mississippi to St. Anthony's Falls, and into the copper-bearing regions
of that latitude. Immediately I wrote to the Hon. J.B. Thomas, of
Illinois, the only gentleman I knew at Washington, on the subject,
giving him a brief d