A very clear and concise description of the interior arrangement and fittings of an earth lodge, one standing in the village of the Grand Pawnee during the autumn of 1835, has been preserved in Dunbar's journal. On October 22, after referring to the construction of the lodge itself, he wrote: "Within these buildings the earth is beat down hard, and forms the floor. In the center a circular place is dug about 8 inches deep, and 3 feet in diameter. This is the fireplace. The earth that is taken from this place is spatted down around it, and forms the hearth. Near the fireplace a stake is firmly fixed in the earth in an inclined position, and serves all the purposes of a crane. Mats made of rushes are spread down round the fire on which they sit. Back next the walls are the sleeping apartments. A frame work is raised about two feet from the floor, on this are placed small rods, interwoven with slips of elm bark. On these rods a rush mat is spread. At proper distances partitions are set up, composed of small willow rods interwoven with slips of bark. In front of these apartments, either a partition of willow rods is erected, or rush mats are hung up as curtains. But this is not always the case. In some lodges the simple platform alone is to be seen, without either partitions, or curtains. In others there is not even the platform, and the inmates sleep on the ground. "In these lodges several families frequently live together. I believe there are as many as three different families in the lodge where I stop. Each family has its particular portion of the dwelling, and the furniture of each is kept separate." (Dunbar, (2), p. 600.) Comparing the two preceding accounts it is easy to visualize the interior of Pawnee earth lodges as they were nearly a century ago. The preceding references to the women of the villages going early in the morning to their fields of corn recall a note in Fremont's journal a few years later. He wrote when returning from the mountains, on September 22, 1842, "We arrived at the village of the Grand Pawnees, on the right bank of the river [the Platte] about thirty miles above the mouth of the Loup fork. They were gathering in their corn, and we obtained from them a very welcome supply of vegetables." (Fremont, (1), p. 78.)