Austin's old smelting-house, and collected specimens
of the various minerals of the country. Some of my excursions were made
on foot, some on horseback, and some in a single wagon. I unwittingly
killed a horse in these trips, in swimming a river, when the animal was
over-heated; at least he was found dead next morning in the stable.
In the month of October I resolved to push my examinations west beyond
the line of settlement, and to extend them into the Ozark Mountains. By
this term is meant a wide range of hill country running from the head of
the Merrimack southerly through Missouri and Arkansas. In this
enterprise several persons agreed to unite. I went to St. Louis, and
interested a brother of my friend Pettibone in the plan. I found my old
fellow-voyager, Brigham, on the American bottom in Illinois, where he
had cultivated some large fields of corn, and where he had contracted
fever and ague. He agreed, however, to go, and reached the point of
rendezvous, at Potosi; but he had been so enfeebled as to be obliged to
return from that point.
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