rock salt, in mountain mass, had long been numbered by popular belief, among the fanciful creations of an exciting political era; and together with western volcanoes, had settled down among those antiquarian rumours, which hold up, as their prime item, the existence of the living mammoth "beyond the big lakes." If the writer of the notes and journal which furnish these sketches, was not swayed by any particular theories of this nature, yet was he not free from the expectation of finding abundant materials, in the natural productions and scenery and incidents of the journey, to reward him amply for its perils. He had received from hunters several objects of the mineralogical and geological collection which he made, while living at Potosi, and _Mine à Burton_: from these wild borders, and, without pretending to estimate the force of each particular object which made up the sum of his motives, he resolved to organize an expedition, with all the means he could muster, and explore the region. The Austins, who had treated him with marked kindness and attention, from the hour of his first landing in Missouri, were then preparing to make their first movement into Texas, and held out to him a fine theatre for enterprise; but it was one not suited to his particular means or taste. He recoiled from the subtlety of the Spanish character; and is free to confess, that he deemed it a far more attractive latitude for the zea maize and the cotton plant, than for those pursuits which led him to prefer the more rugged eminences of the Ozarks. They, in the end, founded a republic, and he only made an adventurous journey. Having thus recalled the era and the motive of the following sketches, the purport of these remarks is accomplished. _New York_, 1844. CHAPTER I. Things to be thought of before plunging into the woods--Composition of the party, and reasons why it was not more numerous--First night's encampment--Preliminaries--Sleep in a deserted Indian lodge--A singular variety of the Fox Squirrel--The Pack Horse escapes--Cross the elevation called the Pinery--Reach the outskirts of the settlements in the valley of the Fourche A'Courtois.