The earth of the bluffs was
streaked with layers of coal, or carbonized wood, and large quantities
of lava and pumice-stone were strewn around, showing traces of ancient
volcanic action. The journal of April 9 says:--
"A great number of brants (snow-geese) pass up the river; some of them
are perfectly white, except the large feathers of the first joint of
the wing, which are black, though in every other characteristic they
resemble common gray brant. We also saw but could not procure an animal
(gopher) that burrows in the ground, and is similar in every respect to
the burrowing-squirrel, except that it is only one-third of its size.
This may be the animal whose works we have often seen in the plains and
prairies; they resemble the labors of the salamander in the sand-hills
of South Carolina and Georgia, and like him the animals rarely come
above ground; they consist of a little hillock of ten or twelve pounds
of loose ground, which would seem to have been reversed from a pot,
though no aperture is seen through which it could have been thrown. On
removing gently the earth, you discover that the soil has been broken
in a circle of about an inch and a half diameter, where the ground is
looser, though still no opening is perceptible. When we stopped for
dinner the squaw (Sacajawea) went out, and after penetrating with a
sharp stick the holes of the mice (gophers), near some drift-wood,
brought to us a quantity of wild artichokes, which the mice collect and
hoard in large numbers.
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