Mr. Frazer, a gentleman who has been several years engaged in the fur trade, in the interior of North America, on the Columbia, and in North California, in speaking of the beaver, mentioned a circumstance, which we do not remember to have seen recorded. The lodges are usually so placed, that the animals ascend the stream some distance to arrive at the spot whence they procure their food. They make their excursions under water, and they have, at equal distances, excavations under the bank, called _washes_, into which they go and raise their heads above the surface, in order to breathe, without exposing themselves to be seen. In winter the position of these washes is ascertained, by the hollow sound the ground returns when beaten; and the beavers are sometimes taken, by being pursued into these holes, the entrances to which are afterwards closed. Otters are frequent on the Missouri. We had an opportunity of seeing on the ice of Boyer Creek a considerable number of the tracks or paths of otters; they were the more readily distinguishable, from there being snow of but little depth on the ice, and they appeared as if the animal was accustomed to slide in his movements on the ice, as there were, in the first place, the impressions of two feet, then a long mark clear of snow a distance of three or four feet, then the impressions of the feet of the animal, after which the sliding mark, and so on alternately. These paths were numerous, and passed between the bank and a situation, where a hole had been in the ice, now frozen over.—JAMES. From the limited information communicated to the public, on the subject of Mr. Hunt's Expedition to the mouth of the Columbia, commenced in the year 1811, it appears that a part of the men engaged in that undertaking, in their return from the Pacific, crossed the Rocky Mountains from some one of the upper branches of Lewis' river, and falling upon the sources of the north fork of the Platte, descended thence to the Missouri. {152} On the 28th of June, 1812, Mr. Robert Stewart, one of the partners of the Pacific Fur Company, with two Frenchmen, M'Clellan, and Crooks, left the Pacific ocean with despatches for New York. Having proceeded about seven hundred miles, they met Mr. Joseph Miller, on his way to the mouth of the Columbia. He had been considerably to the south and east, and had fallen in with the Black-arms, and the Arrapahoes, who wander about the sources of the Arkansa. By the latter of these he had been robbed, in consequence of which he was now reduced to starvation and nakedness. Mr. Stewart and his companions had fifteen horses, but soon afterwards met with a band of the Crow Indians, near the Rocky Mountains, who behaved with the most unbounded insolence, and finally stole every horse belonging to the party.