Extensive and very accessible beds of coal have been opened near Thrall's plantation. The inhabitants assert that, in sinking wells, the trunks of large trees have been met with at a great depth below the surface. We could, however, discover no satisfactory {102} confirmation of this statement. The soil appeared to us to exhibit no evidence of having been disturbed at any period since the deposition of the coal beds and the accompanying sandstones. On the 8th of June we arrived at Franklin. Here we delayed several days, in the expectation of receiving from Washington some further instructions, and the supply of funds necessary for the prosecution of the duties of the expedition. Having anxiously awaited one weekly arrival of the mail, and being disappointed of the expected communications, Major Long resolved to continue the journey, and to proceed in the accomplishment of the services assigned him, as far as the means then at his command would allow. As the great part of our proposed route to Council Bluff lay through the wilderness, we now thought it necessary to procure two horses, in addition to those we already had; one of them to be loaded with provisions, and the other for the use of a man whom we had engaged to accompany us. We left Franklin on the 14th; and proceeding by a rugged and circuitous road across a tract of hilly forests, arrived at Charaton the same evening. From Charaton to the mouth of Grand river,[63] _the trace_, as the paths are here called, passes through a tract of low alluvial lands, partly covered with forests, but all extremely fertile. Here we were to take leave of the settlements, and to pursue the remainder of our journey through the wilderness; after dining in the cabin of a settler, we crossed Grand river, and betook ourselves to the course we thought proper to pursue, through a tangled and pathless forest. This brought us, after a few hours, to the border of an extensive plain. Our horses, somewhat unaccustomed to travelling in woods, and particularly the pack-horse, being young and untutored, gave us much trouble. [63] For Franklin and Chariton, see the preceding volume, notes 116, 122. Grand River is a considerable affluent of the Missouri; it rises in southern Iowa and flows southeasterly; its lower course forms the boundary between Chariton and Carroll counties, Missouri.—ED.