Daniel Boon, whose history is connected with that of all the new settlements from Kentucky westward, answered to an inquiry concerning the cause of his frequent change of residence, "I think it time to remove when I can no longer fall a tree for fuel, so that its top will lie within a few yards of the door of my cabin."[137] The charms of that mode of life, wherein the artificial wants and the uneasy restraints inseparable from a crowded population are not known, wherein we feel ourselves dependent immediately and solely on the bounty of nature, and the strength of our own arm, will not be appreciated by those to whom they are known only from description, though they never fail to make an impression upon such as have acquired a knowledge of them from experience. A settler on the Missouri observed to us, that the land he at present occupied was not better than that he had left in Tennessee; but he did not wish to spend all his life in one place, and he had learned from experience, that a man might live in greater ease and freedom where his neighbours were not very numerous. A person upwards of sixty years old, who had recently arrived at one of the highest settlements of the Missouri, inquired of us very particularly of the river Platte, and of the quality of the lands about its source. We discovered that he had the most serious intention of removing with his family to that river. On the last day of July and the first of August, about two inches of rain fell: the prevailing winds were from the north-east; but the superior strata of the atmosphere carried clouds of different descriptions in different, and sometimes opposite directions. The moon soon after rising, passed behind a long dense body of cirrus clouds, that floated over the eastern horizon. Long and distinct radii were soon after seen converging to a point fifteen or twenty of {99} the moon's diameters to the eastward of its disk. Such is the refracting power of the aqueous vapors sometimes suspended in the atmosphere. Horizontal strata of sandstone and compact lime stone, are disclosed in the cliffs on both sides the valley of the Missouri. These rocks contain numerous remains of caryophilla, productus, and terebratulæ.[138] Some days passed after our arrival at Fort Osage, before the weather admitted our making the astronomical observations necessary to ascertain its position. The mean of the results of several observations of the meridian altitude of the sun's lower limb gave 39° 9′ 33-1/2″ north, for the latitude of the place. FOOTNOTES: