In relation to the climate of the country on Red river we have received little definite information. The journal of the Exploring Expedition contains a record of thermometric observations for thirty-six days, commencing with June 1st, 1806, and extending to July 6th. These were made between Natchitoches and the Coashatay village; and the temperature, both of the air and the water of the river, are noted three times per day, at 6 a.m. and 3 and 9 P.M. They indicate a climate extremely mild and equable. The range of atmospheric temperature is from 72° to 93° Fah. that of the water from 79° to 92°. The daily oscillations are nearly equal, and the aggregate temperature rises slowly and uniformly towards midsummer. From Lockhart's settlement on the Saline river of Washita to Little Rock on the Arkansa, is a distance about twenty-five miles. As we approached the Arkansa, we found the country less broken and rocky than above. The soil of the uplands is gravelly and comparatively barren, producing almost exclusively scattered forests of oak, while along the streams are small tracts of extremely fertile bottom lands. In some of the vallies, however, the cypress appears filling extensive swamps, and imparting a gloomy and {178} unpromising aspect to the country. This tree is well known in all the southern section of the United States, to indicate a low and marshy soil, but not universally one which is irreclaimable. It is rarely if ever met with north of the latitude of 38°. In many respects, particularly in the texture, firmness, and durability of its wood, and in its choice of situation, it resembles the white cedar[71] of the northern states, but far surpasses it in size, being one of the largest trees in North America. "There is," says Du Pratz, "a cypress tree at Baton Rouge, which measures twelve yards round, and is of prodigious height." In the cypress swamps, few other trees, and no bushes are to be seen, and the innumerable conic excrescences called knees, which spring up from the roots, resembling the monuments in a church-yard, give a gloomy and peculiar aspect to the scenery of those cypress swamps. The old error of Du Pratz, with regard to the manner of the reproduction of the cypress, is still maintained by great numbers of people who never heard of his book. "It renews itself," says he, "in a most extraordinary manner:--A short time after it is cut down a shoot is observed to grow from one of its roots, exactly in the form of a sugarloaf, and this sometimes rises ten feet high before any leaf appears; the branches at length rise from the head of this conical shoot."[72] We have often been reminded of this account of Du Pratz, by hearing the assertion among the settlers, that the cypress never grows from the seed; it would appear, however, that he could have been little acquainted with the tree, or he would have been aware that the conic excrescences in question spring up and grow