The first dwellings constructed by the white settlers are nearly similar in every part of the United States. Superior wealth and industry are indicated by the number and magnitude of corn-cribs, smoke-houses, and similar appurtenances; but on the Missouri, we rarely meet with any thing occupying the place of the barn in the northern states. The dwellings of people who have emigrated from Virginia, or any of the more southern states, have usually the form of double cabins, or two distinct houses, each containing a single room, and connected to each other by a roof; the intermediate space, which is often equal in area to one of the cabins, being left open at the sides, and having the naked earth for a floor, affords a cool and airy retreat, where the family will usually be found in the heat of the day. The roof is composed of from three to five logs, laid longitudinally, {71} and extending from end to end of the building; on these are laid the shingles, four or five feet in length; over these are three or four heavy logs, called weight poles, secured at their ends by withes, and by their weight supplying the place of nails. They have corn-mills, consisting of a large horizontal wooden wheel, moved by a horse, and having a band passed round its periphery to communicate motion to the stone. These are called band-mills, and are the most simple and economical of those in which the power of horses is employed. The solitary planter, who has chosen his place remote from the habitation of any other family, has sometimes a mill of a more primitive character, called a hand-mill, probably differing little from those used among the ancient Egyptians. It consists of two stones; and while one person causes the uppermost to revolve horizontally upon the disk of the other, a second, who is usually a child or a woman, introduces the corn a few grains at a time, through a perforation in the upper stone. Some are content with the still ruder apparatus, consisting of an excavation in the top of a stump; into which the corn is thrown, and brayed with a pestle. This is the method in use among many of the agricultural Indians. A large species of lampyris is common on the lower part of the Missouri. It is readily distinguished from the smaller species, the common fire-fly, by its mode of coruscating. It emits from three to seven or eight flashes, in rapid succession, then ceases; but shortly after renews its brilliancy. This species appears early in May. We saw many of them in returning by night from the Merameg to St. Louis; but before our arrival at Loutre Island they had disappeared, and were succeeded by great numbers of the lampyris pyralis, whose coruscations are inferior in quantity of light, and appear singly.