Very little, it is conceived, is necessary to enable the reader to determine the writer's position on the extreme south-western frontiers, in the year 1818. He had spent the summer of that year in traversing the mine district, which extends along the right bank of the Mississippi, between the mouth of the Maromeg and the diluvial cliffs south of Cape Girardeau, extending west and south-westward to the sources of the St. Francis. In these mineralogical rambles, which were pursued sometimes on foot, and sometimes on horseback, or wheels, he made acquaintance with many estimable men, amongst whom he may name the Austins, father and son, the late Col. Ashley, John Rice Jones, Esq., and many others who are still living, by all whom, his object in visiting the country was cordially approved and encouraged, at all times. He also became acquainted with practical miners, and persons of enterprize who were not only familiar with the settled frontiers, but who had occasionally penetrated beyond them, into the broad expanse of highlands, now geographically known under the term of, the Ozark Chain. Geologically considered, the mine country is but the eastern flanks of this chain, which extends flush to the banks of the Mississippi, and has its terminus in that elevated range of mural cliffs, which form so striking and often picturesque a display, between St. Genevieve and St. Louis. There was, at the time, a general apprehension felt and expressed, by hunters and others who had penetrated those wilds in quest of deer and buffalo, or of saltpetre-earth in the limestone caves, of the predatory tribe of the Osages,--a people who had for years enjoyed the bad reputation of being thieves and plunderers. All concurred, however, in the interesting character of the country extending in a general course, south-westwardly, from the junction of the Missouri with the Mississippi. He felt an ardent desire to penetrate this terra incognita. He could not learn that any exploratory journey had been made towards the Rocky Mountains, since the well known expeditions of Lewis and Clark, up the Missouri, and of Lieut. Pike, across the upper region of the Arkansas, to Sande Fe and Chihuahua. Breckenridge had subsequently published an account of a trip to Council Bluffs.[2] But neither of these routes crossed the wide and mountainous tracts referred to, or gave any definite information respecting them. Viewed on the map, these routes formed the general exterior outlines, but they left the interior filling up to be supplied,--or, if supplied at all, it was too often with such vague phrases as these--"Here are salt mountains." "The ---- is supposed to take its rise here." "Volcanic hills," and so forth. The geology of the country furnished no indications whatever of the probability of the latter remark. The kind of pseudo-pumice found floating down the Missouri, in high water, had been stated by Lewis and Clarke, to have a far more remote, and local origin. The description of