The weather had attained the summer heat;
the thermometer standing about fifty-seven degrees in the morning,
early, but rising to about ninety degrees at noon. The incessant
breezes, however, which sweep these vast plains render the heats
endurable. Game was scanty, and they had to eke out their scanty fare
with wild roots and vegetables, such as the Indian potato, the wild
onion, and the prairie tomato, and they met with quantities of "red
root," from which the hunters make a very palatable beverage. The only
human being that crossed their path was a Kansas warrior, returning from
some solitary expedition of bravado or revenge, bearing a Pawnee scalp
as a trophy.
The country gradually rose as they proceeded westward, and their route
took them over high ridges, commanding wide and beautiful prospects.
The vast plain was studded on the west with innumerable hills of conical
shape, such as are seen north of the Arkansas River. These hills have
their summits apparently cut off about the same elevation, so as to
leave flat surfaces at top. It is conjectured by some that the whole
country may originally have been of the altitude of these tabular hills;
but through some process of nature may have sunk to its present level;
these insulated eminences being protected by broad foundations of solid
rock.
Captain Bonneville mentions another geological phenomenon north of
Red River, where the surface of the earth, in considerable tracts of
country, is covered with broad slabs of sandstone, having the form and
position of grave-stones, and looking as if they had been forced up by
some subterranean agitation.
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