"Gramercy, Sir Traveller, it marvels me how you can carry between one pair of shoulders the weight of your heavy wisdom. Alack, now! would you but discourse me of the wonders you saw ayont the antipodes!"

"Peace, ignoramus! 'tis too good for thy ass's ears to listen to. The world shall get it, caxtonized in a great book."—Traveller and Simpleton.

Of the alluvial character of the celebrated American Bottom there can exist no doubt. Logs, shells, fragments of coal, and pebbles, which have been subjected to the abrasion of moving water, are found at a depth of thirty feet from the surface; and the soil throughout seems of unvarying fecundity. Whether this alluvial deposition is to be considered the result of annual floods of the river for ages, or whether the entire bottom once formed the bed of a vast lake, in which the waters of the Mississippi and Missouri mingled on their passage to the Gulf, is a question of some considerable interest. The latter seems the more plausible theory. Indeed, the ancient existence of an immense lake, where now lies the American Bottom, upon the east side of the Mississippi, and the Mamelle Prairie upon the west side, extending seventy 219 miles northwardly from the mouth of the Missouri where the Bottom ends, appears geologically demonstrable. The southern limit of this vast body of water seems to have been at that remarkable cliff, rising from the bed of the Mississippi about twenty miles below the outlet of the Kaskaskia, and known as the "Grand Tower." There is every indication from the torn and shattered aspect of the cliffs upon either side, and the accumulation of debris, that a grand parapet of limestone at this point once presented a barrier to the heaped-up waters, and formed a cataract scarcely less formidable than that of Niagara. The elevation of the river by this obstacle is estimated at one hundred and thirty feet above the present ordinary water-mark. For more than an hundred miles before reaching this point, the Mississippi now rolls through a broad, deep valley, bounded by an escarpment of cliffs upon either side; and, wherever these present a bold faÇade to the stream, they are grooved, as at the cornice-rocks, by a series of parallel lines, distinctly traced and strikingly uniform. As the river descends, these water-grooves gradually rise along the heights, until, at the Grand Tower, they attain an altitude of more than an hundred feet; below this point the phenomenon is not observed.[73] This circumstance, and the disruption of the cliffs at the same elevation, clearly indicate the former surface of the lake. Organic remains, petrifactions of madrepores, corallines, concholites, and other fossil testacea, are found imbedded in a stratum 220 nearly at the base. Similar phenomena of the water-lines exist upon the cliffs of the Ohio, and a barrier is thought once to have obstructed the stream at a point called the Narrows, sixty miles below Louisville, with the same result as upon the Mississippi. The eastern boundary of the expansion of the latter stream must have been the chain of bluffs now confining the American Bottom in that direction, and considered a spur of the Ozark Mountains. This extends northeasterly to the "confluence;" thence, bending away to the northwest, it reaches the Illinois, and forms the eastern bank of that river. Upon the western side, the hills along the Missouri are sufficiently elevated to present a barrier to the lake until they reach the confluence of the rivers. At this point spreads out the Mamelle Prairie, sixty or seventy miles in length, and, upon an average, five or six in breadth. West of this plain, the lake was bounded by the range of bluffs commencing with the celebrated "Mamelles," and stretching north until they strike the river; while the gradual elevation of the country, ascending the Upper Mississippi, presented a limit in that direction.

The event by which this great lake was drained appears to have been of a character either convulsive or volcanic, or to have been the result of the long-continued abrasion of the waters, as at Niagara. The rocks at the Grand Tower are limestone of secondary formation—the stratum being several hundred feet in depth, and imbedding hornstone and marine petrifactions throughout. They 221 everywhere exhibit indications of having once been subjected to the attrition of rushing water, as do the cliffs bounding the Northern lakes, which have long been chafed by the waves. The evidence of volcanic action, or violent subterranean convulsion of some kind, caused by heat, seems hardly less evident. The former workings of a divulsive power of terrific energy is betrayed, indeed, all over this region. In the immediate vicinity of the Grand Tower, which may be considered the scene of its most fearful operations, huge masses of shattered rock, dipping in every direction, are scattered about; and the whole stratum for twenty miles around lies completely broken up. At the point in the range of bluffs where this confusion is observed to cease, the mural cliff rises abruptly to the altitude of several hundred feet, exhibiting along the faÇade of its summit deep water-lines and other evidence of having once constituted the boundary of a lake. At the base issues a large spring of fresh water, remarkable for a regular ebb and flow, like the tides of the ocean, once in twenty-four hours.[74] At this spot, also, situated in the southeastern extremity of St. Clair county, exists an old American settlement, commenced a century since, and called the "Block-house," from the circumstance of a stoccade fort for defence against the 222 Indians.[75] By a late geological reconnoissance, we learn that, from this remarkable tide-spring until we reach the Grand Tower, the face of the country has a depressed and sunken aspect, as if once the bed of standing water; and was evidently overlaid by an immense stratum of calcareous rock. A hundred square miles of this massive ledge have, by some tremendous convulsion of Nature, been thrown up and shattered in fragments. The confused accumulation of debris is now sunken and covered with repeated strata of alluvial deposite. Evidence of all this is adduced from the circumstance that huge blocks of limestone are yet frequently to be encountered in this region, some of them protruding twenty or thirty feet above the surface. As we approach the Grand Tower—that focus, around which the convulsed throes of Nature seem to have concentrated their tremendous energy—the number and the magnitude of these massive blocks constantly increase, until, at that point, we behold them piled up in mountain-masses as if by the hand of Omnipotent might. Upon all this vast Valley of the West the terrible impress of Almighty power seems planted in characters too deep to be swept away by the effacing finger of time. We trace them not more palpably in these fearful results of the convulsions of Nature, agonized by the tread of Deity, than in the eternal flow of those gigantic rivers which roll their floods over this wreck of elements, or in those ocean-plains which, upon either side, in billowy grandeur heave away, wave after wave, till lost in the magnificence of 223 boundless extent. And is there nothing in those vast accumulations of organic fossils—spoils of the sea and the land—the collected wealth of the animal, vegetable, and mineral worlds, entombed in the heart of the everlasting hills—is there naught in all this to arouse within the reflecting mind a sentiment of wonder, and elicit an acknowledgment to the grandeur of Deity? Whence came these varied productions of the land and sea, so incongruous in character and so diverse in origin? By what fearful anarchy of elements were they imbedded in these massive cliffs? How many ages have rolled away since they were entombed in these adamantine sepulchres, from which Nature's convulsive throes in later times have caused the resurrection? To such inquiries we receive no answer. The secrecy of untold cycles veils the reply in mystery. The effect is before us, but the cause rests alone with Omniscience.

How wonderful are the phenomena betrayed in the geological structure of our earth! And scarcely less so are the ignorance and the indifference respecting them manifested by most of our race. "It is marvellous," says the celebrated Buckland,[76] "that mankind should have gone on for so many centuries in ignorance of the fact, which is now so fully demonstrated, that so small a part of the present surface of the earth is derived from the remains of animals that constituted the population of ancient seas. Many extensive plains and massive mountains form, as it were, the great charnel-houses of preceding generations, in which the petrified exuviÆ 224 of extinct races of animals and vegetables are piled into stupendous monuments of the operations of life and death during almost immeasurable periods of past time." "At the sight of a spectacle," says Cuvier,[77] "so imposing, so terrible as that of the wreck of animal life, forming almost the entire soil on which we tread, it is difficult to restrain the imagination from hazarding some conjectures as to the cause by which such great effects have been produced." The deeper we descend into the strata of the earth, the higher do we ascend into the archÆological history of past ages of creation. We find successive stages marked by varying forms of animal and vegetable life, and these generally differ more and more widely from existing species as we go farther downward into the receptacle of the wreck of more ancient creations.

That centuries have elapsed since that war of elements by which the great lake of the Mississippi was drained of its waters, the aged forests rearing themselves from its ancient bed, and the venerable monuments resting upon the surface, satisfactorily demonstrate. Remains, also, of a huge animal of graminivorous habits, but differing from the mastodon, have, within a few years, been disinterred from the soil. The theory of the Baron Cuvier, that our earth is but the wreck of other worlds, meets with ample confirmation in the geological character of the Western Valley.

As to agricultural productions, besides those of the more ordinary species, the soil of the American Bottom, in its southern sections, seems eminently 225 adapted to the cultivation of cotton, hemp, and tobacco, not to mention the castor-bean and the Carolina potato. The tobacco-plant, one of the most sensitively delicate members of the vegetable family, has been cultivated with more than ordinary success; and a quantity inspected at New-Orleans a few years since was pronounced superior to any ever offered at that market.

As I journeyed leisurely onward over this celebrated tract, extensive and beautiful farms spread out themselves around me, waving in all the gorgeous garniture of early autumn. The prairie was carpeted with the luxuriant richness of the golden rod, and all the gaudy varieties of the heliotrope and asters, and the crimson-dyed leaves of the dwarf-sumach; while here and there upon the extended plain stood out in loneliness, like a landmark of centuries, one of those mysterious tombs of a departed race of which I have already said so much. Some of them were to be seen rearing up their summits from the hearts of extensive maize-fields, crowned with an exuberance of vegetation; and upon one of larger magnitude stood a white farmhouse, visible in the distance for miles down the prairie. The number of these ancient mounds upon the American Bottom is estimated at three hundred; far more than are to be found upon any other tract of equal extent.

At the old French village of Prairie du Pont,[78] situated upon a creek of the same name, I made the necessary tarry for some refreshment, upon which breakfast or dinner might have laid nearly equal 226 claim to bestow a name. The most striking circumstance which came under my observation during my delay at this place was a very novel mode of producing the metamorphosis of cream into butter pursued by these villagers; a manoeuvre executed by beating the cream with a spoon in a shallow basin. This operation I beheld carried on by the dark-browed landlord, much to my ignorance and wonder, with not an idea of its nature, until the substance produced was placed upon the board before me, and called butter. Prairie du Pont is one of the dampest, filthiest, most disagreeably ruinous of all the old villages I have ever visited. A few miles to the north is situated Cahokia,[79] one of the earliest settlements in the state, and the ancient residence of the Caoquias, one of the tribes of the Illini Indians. The place is supposed to have been settled by the followers of La Salle during his second expedition to the West in 1683, on his return from the mouth of the Mississippi. More than a century and a half has since elapsed; and the river, which then washed the foot of the village, is now more than a mile distant. This removal commenced, we are told, shortly after the first settlement, and well exemplifies the arbitrary character of the Western waters. Formerly, also, a considerable creek, which yet retains the name of the village, passed through its midst, discharging itself into the Mississippi not far below. The outlet is now several miles higher up; and tradition attributes the change to the pique of an irritated villager, who, out of sheer spite to the old place and its inhabitants, 227 cut a channel from the creek to the river, and turned the waters from their ancient course.

As French immigration at Cahokia increased, the Indian tribe receded, until the last remnant has long since disappeared. Yet it is a singular fact in the history of this settlement, that, notwithstanding the savages were forced to abandon a spot endeared to them by protracted residence and the abundance of game in the neighbouring prairies and lakes, they have ever regarded their successors with feelings of unchanging friendliness. How different, under the same circumstances, was the fate of the settlements of Plymouth and Jamestown; and even here, no sooner did the American race appear among the French, than hostilities commenced.

For many years Cahokia, like old Kaskaskia, was the gathering-spot of a nomadic race of trappers, hunters, miners, voyageurs, engagÉs, couriers du bois, and adventurers, carrying on an extensive and valuable fur-trade with the Indian tribes of the Upper Mississippi. This traffic has long since been transferred to St. Louis, and the village seems now remarkable for nothing but the venerableness of age and decay. All the peculiarities of these old settlements, however, are here to be seen in perfection. The broad-roofed, whitewashed, and galleried cottage; the picketed enclosure; the kitchen garden; the peculiar costumes, customs, poverty, ignorance, and indolence of the race, are here met, precisely as has more than once already been described in these volumes. Here, too, is the gray old Catholic church, in which service is still regularly 228 performed by the officiating priest. Connected with it is now a nunnery and a seminary of education for young ladies. The villagers still retain their ancient activity of heel and suppleness of elbow; and not a week is suffered to pass without a merry-making and a dance. The old "common field" is still under cultivation; and, uncurtailed of its fair proportions, stretches away up the bottom to the village opposite St. Louis. This valuable tract, held in common by the villagers of Cahokia and Prairie du Pont, has been confirmed to them by act of Congress; and, so long since as fifty years, four hundred acres adjoining the former village were, by special act, granted to each family.[80] The number of families is now, as has been the case this century past, about fifty, neither diminishing nor increasing. Very few of the inhabitants are of American origin, and these are liable to annual attacks of fever, owing to the damp site of the place and the noxious effluvia of the numerous marshes in the vicinity. Upon the French villagers these causes of disease exert no effect, favourable or unfavourable. A few acres of corn; a log cabin; a few swarthy responsibilities, and a few cattle; a cracked fiddle, and a few cartloads of prairie-grass-hay in autumn, seems the very ultimatum of his heart to covet or his industry to obtain.

The road from Cahokia to the city, inasmuch as it is not often conscious of a more dignified equipage than the rude market-cart of the French villager, is of no wonderful celebrity for breadth, or uniformity of track, or excellence of structure. It extends 229 along the bank of the Mississippi, and is shaded on either side by the strip of forest which skirts the margin. After a tarry of several hours at Cahokia, and an excursion among the mounds of the neighbouring prairie, near sunset I found myself approaching "Illinois-town," opposite St. Louis.[81] It was the calm, soft evening hour; and, as I now advanced briskly over the prairie, the cool breeze was whispering among the perfumed grass-tops, and "night's silvery veil" was slowly gathering along the retreating landscape. The sun went down like a monarch, robed in purple, and the fleecy clouds which had formed his throne rolled themselves in rich luxuriance along the horizon, suffused in the beautiful carmine of the heavens. At intervals an opening in the forest laid bare the scene of splendour as I hastened onward, and then all was dusk again. Winding among the group of mounds reposing in the deepening twilight, and penetrating the grove of pecans, the moon was just beginning to gild the gliding wave at my feet as my horse stood out upon the bank of the stream. Clear and distinct beyond, against the crimson back-ground of the evening sky, were cut the towers, and cupolas, and lofty roofs of the city; while in front, the lengthened line of white warehouses gleamed from the shade along the curving shore: and the eye, as it glanced up the far-retreating vistas of the streets, caught a glimpse of deeper glories along the narrow zone of horizon beyond. The broad sheet which I was now crossing seemed, with the oily gliding of its ripples, completely died in the tender roseate of the 230 sunset sky. As the shades of evening deepened into night, one after another these delicate hues faded gently away: and the moonlight streamed in full floods of misty magnificence far over the distant forests; the evening-bells of the city pealed out merrily over the waters; the many lights of the steamers cheerfully twinkled along the landing; and, as the last faint glimmer of day had gone out, and night had resumed her sable reign, I found myself once more amid the "crowd and shock of men," threading the long, dusty streets of St. Louis....

---

Gentle Reader, the tale is told—our task is ended—

Our pilgrimage is over, fellow-wanderer. Full many a bright day have we trod together the green prairies, and glided over the far-winding waters of the fair Valley. Together have we paused and pondered beside the mysterious mausoleum of a race departed. We have lingered among the time-stained dwellings of an ancient and peculiar people, and with kindling interest have dwelt upon the early chronicles and the wild legends of the "far off," beautiful West. But autumn is upon us—shadowy autumn, dark on the mountain-brow. Her purple mistiness is deepening over the distant landscape; and the chill rustle of her evening wind, in melancholy whisperings, wanders among the pennoned 231 grass-tops. Our pilgrimage ceases, yet with no unmingled emotions do I say to thee "pax vobiscum!"

St. Louis, Oct., 1837.

---

[Pg 122]
[Pg 123]

De Smet's Letters and Sketches, 1841-1842

Reprint of original English edition: Philadelphia, 1843

---

---

[Pg 124]
[Pg 125]
[Pg 126]
[Pg 127]

---

[Pg 128]
[Pg 129]