{180} Major Long's notes of a tour in the Arkansa territory contain tables of meteorological observations, showing the variations of temperature from September 30th, 1817, to January 31st, 1818. The country in which these observations were made, is that between the Arkansa at Fort Smith, and the Red river at the mouth of the Kiamesha, about the hot springs of the Washita, the settlement of Cadron, &c. Here we find in the month of January the mercury at zero, and shortly after at 58°, a degree of cold that would not discredit the climate of Moscow, and a rapidity of change and violence of vicissitude to compare with the ever-varying temperature of the Atlantic states. We might expect in the latitude of 34°, and in a region placed along the south-eastern slope of a moderately elevated range of mountains, a mild and equable climate. But almost every portion of the territory of the United States seems alike exposed to the influence of the western and north-western winds, refrigerated in their passage over the wide and frozen regions of the Rocky Mountains, and rushing down unobstructed across the naked plains of the great desert, penetrating with almost unmitigated rigour to the Atlantic coast. It is proper to remark, that the winter of 1817-18 was considered one of unusual severity in the Arkansa territory. From the accounts of Hunter and Dunbar, it appears, that in December 1804 the weather was much milder in the same portion of country. An alligator was seen in December many miles above the confluence of the Saline Fork, and even at the hot springs many plants were in flower, and the ground in the woods had considerable appearance of verdure. We have been assured by emigrants from North Carolina, that the winter temperature of the country, about the upper branches of the Washita, is more mild and equable than that of the corresponding latitudes on the Atlantic coast. {181} On the 12th October the exploring party were all assembled at Cape Girardeau. Lieutenant Graham, with the steam-boat Western Engineer, had arrived a day or two before from St. Louis; having delayed there some time subsequent to his return from the Upper Mississippi. In the discharge of the duties on which he had been ordered, Lieutenant G. and all his party had suffered severely from bilious and intermitting fever.