not give the exact thickness; probably 50 to 70 feet. Some seams of excellent potters' clay.

1. Dark bluish shaly clay, upon which the foundation of Mr. Jenkins's mill rests. It is, undoubtedly, permian or permo-carboniferous, but is not exposed to view by natural excavations until we reach a point south of the Nebraska line, near Marysville, Kansas.

The dark bed in division 3 of the above section has been regarded by the settlers with a good deal of interest as indicating the proximity of a workable bed of coal. I gave all the exposures a careful examination, and found them of no possible value.

Large masses of iron pyrites, some with brilliant crystalline forms, were found; others mixed with bits of charcoal and large masses of petrified wood, showing the vegetable structure with great distinctness.

Bones of some extinct saurian animal are frequently found in these beds. In the sandstones of the upper bed many impressions of leaves similar to those of our existing forest trees are found. They comprise the cinnamon, fig, laurel, sycamore, sassafras, magnolia, and many others belonging to genera common to both tropical and temperate climates, but all belonging to extinct species. Indeed, the cretaceous period marks the dawn of the existence of dicotyledonous trees, or those similar to our existing forest, fruit, or ornamental trees on our planet, and consequently forms a new and most important era in the progress of American geological history.

I shall have more to say in regard to them in my description of the geology of other counties.

These sandstones continue up the Little Blue until we arrive within four miles of the mouth of the Big Sandy, when masses of a whitish limestone make their appearance on the summits of the hills, and eight or ten miles west of the Big Sandy these rocks assume an important thickness.

They are composed of a bivalve shell, (Inoceramus problematicus,) which is as closely packed together in these rocks as if they had been submitted to pressure, with enough carbonate of lime to cement the shells together. The settlers find it useful for building stones, but more useful for converting into lime. It is a chalky shell limestone, and burns into the best lime of any rock in the State. Whether it will be found in great quantities either in the valley of the Little or Big Blue rivers remains still to be determined.

On account of the hostility of the Indians in that region, I did not think it safe or prudent to extend my examination more than about eight miles above the mouth of the Big Sandy.

The same rock occurs on Swan creek, Turkey creek, and the Big Blue above the mouth of Turkey creek. This rock was first studied on the Missouri river, and first appears capping the hills about 30 miles below Sioux City, Iowa, and extends to the foot of the Great Bend, near Yancton, the capital of Dakota Territory. It occupies the whole country, to the exclusion of all other rocks, and a portion of it assumes the appearance of chalk. It has been hitherto supposed that the chalk of commerce is not found in any portion of America, and although this rock has the appearance and nearly the chemical composition of impure chalk, the formation itself has not yet been clearly shown to be the geological equivalent of the true chalk beds of Europe.

On the Missouri river this formation covers an area about 200 miles wide and 400 long. The cretaceous rocks in the valley of the Missouri were, several years ago, separated into five divisions by Mr. Meek and the writer, and were for a long time designated by numbers, as 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

In a paper published in the proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences. of Philadelphia, December, 1860, we published a general section of the cretaceous rocks of the northwest. The sandstones which we have referred to in this report we designated the Dakota group, or Formation No. 1, because these

They have now about 300 acres in corn in good condition, which will prevent them from starving if judiciously cared for by the agent and farmer. It seems hardly possible that a tribe with over 150,000 acres of this tillable land should have no more than 300 or 400 acres in cultivation. These Indians have the same lazy, improvident habits of the wild Indians further west, and the result is that there is at least from three to four months of the year that they are in a pitiable state of starvation. Last spring they ate all the cats and dogs within their reach; horses, cows, or sheep, that had been dead for ten or twelve days, and were in a complete state of putrefaction, were eagerly devoured by them. Anything, however filthy or decayed, that had ever been in the form of food, was eagerly devoured; and yet no lesson is taught them by such severe experience, for nothing could be easier than to place themselves beyond the possibility of want. Even at this time they have nothing to eat but corn, which they cook by boiling in the kernel. Most of the tribe, both men and women, have gone on a hunt at this season to the Republican, where buffalo are said to be plenty. They usually prepare about 500 robes annually, for which they get $5 to $7 apiece. The meat they dry for winter use.

There are now about 430 persons in the tribe, men, women and children, a small remnant of a once powerful tribe. They persist in living in filthy, illventilated mud huts, which at night they close up as tightly as possible, so that they are swept off annually by various diseases, and those that remain are deficient in energy and strength.

Two or three of the families live in rude board houses, but they are not pleased with them, preferring their rude huts.

There are three groups of huts occupying three different elevations on the same ridge, representing three different bands, which are governed by sub-chiefs. The head chief is quite a shrewd man. Some one asked him, when the agent and farmer first came, how he thought he would like them. He at once replied that he could tell that better when he had seen their table; so they made the head chief and his principal men (eight in number) a feast; and they prepared themselves to do justice to the agent's dinner by a three days' fast previously— one hundred pounds of mutton, bread and coffee in proportion-and they made way with it all. Their powers of endurance are exhibited in as marked a manner in devouring food as in abstaining from it. It is a rule with them to eat all that is set before them, however much it may be.

The Indians have a saw-mill and grist mill all under one roof, and a great amount of lumber is sawed and grain ground for the inhabitants of the neighboring region, the avails of which are supposed to go into the Indian fund.

The dirt huts have a diameter of about thirty feet. They are formed by placing a circular row of upright posts in the ground and then fastening to the tops of these horizontal poles, and to these horizontal poles are fastened the poles that form the roof, all slanting towards the top, at which point a round hole is left, two feet in diameter, for the smoke to pass out, then this frame-work is covered over with sods and dirt. The fire is placed in the centre in a circular depression of about six inches deep and four feet in diameter. All around the inside of the hut are board bunks of the rudest kind, usually designed for two persons. Upon these are spread skins or blankets, which serve them for beds. I have seen ten of these in a single hut. On the sides and posts are suspended a great variety of articles-cooking utensils, clothing, the hunting apparatus, &c., which constitute the furniture of the dwelling.

The entrance is about ten or twelve feet long, and is protected by a thick sod covering. Sometimes twenty or thirty persons sleep at night in these huts, every avenue for the admission of fresh air closed up, so that it can hardly be expected that their children will grow up healthy.

Many of these Indians have been educated to some extent at the mission

school, but all that has been taught them, and all that they have seen of the superior comfort of the whites around them, has had no influence in changing their mode of life. They seem to be destitute of the desire for improvement and averse to change, preferring their ancient habits and customs. If they can avoid it they will not travel in the roads made by the whites, but follow their old trails.

A few of the half-breeds live in bark huts. In August, when the heat is excessive, and when the fleas and other vermin become too abundant, they go down by the river in the timber and erect temporary bark huts, and live in them until cold weather commences.

Not far distant from the village are the graves of their dead. In this matter, also, they adhere to their ancient customs. They dig a hole in the ground just about large enough to receive the body, and then pile a mound of earth on it from two to four feet high, and if the deceased possessed a horse, it is killed at the grave, so that the spirit need not be compelled to walk to the celestial hunting-grounds. When the flesh of the horse decays the skull is usually placed upon the grave.

There are, also, two oak trees near the burial ground in which were a large number of bodies, some in small board coffins, and others in the original wrappings of skins and blankets; these were piled one across the other, as many as could rest in the tree.

The Indians have great veneration for their places of burial, and are always loth to leave the graves of their ancestors. They have attempted to protect them. by means of permanent graves.

On a high hill across Plum creek may be seen the nicely fenced graves of two native interpreters of this tribe, who were killed by them some years ago. It is supposed that while on their annual hunt they committed some depredation on white people which they wished to have kept a secret. These interpreters were privy to it, and being on most friendly terms with the white men, the Indians suspected they intended to expose them. They were shot in a ravine in the night near the same spot, and within two days of each other.

We-ha-ta, "Wild-fire," was the presiding genius of our camp. He con-sidered himself specially commissioned to look after our interests in return for his board and that of his family. He wore a turban about his head and a huge necklace of bears' claws around his neck, and conducted himself with all the dignity of a chief.

As I have before mentioned, these Indians possess a reservation covering over 150,000 acres of land. They do not make use of 2,000 acres. They are now surrounded with white settlers who are bitterly prejudiced against them, and the Indians do very little to remove that prejudice. On the contrary, depredations are committed not unfrequently which are attributed to them, for which they must suffer, in the estimation of the white settlers, whether guilty or not.

Situated as they are at present, they are like a small tree under the shadow of a large one; they will dwindle away slowly and soon become extinct.

If the agents of the government that are sent among them would do their duty, and they (the Indians) would put forth a proper amount of industry and energy, they might become very comfortable and prosperous, even rich; but they are constantly deteriorating, and they now possess none of the warlike, manly qualities which are exhibited by some of the wild tribes further west. They are a filthy, begging, lying, thieving race, lazy and improvident in the extreme, doing nothing that can possibly gain the respect of any white man. It would be better for both Indian and white man if all these wild tribes that are located in Kansas and Nebraska could be removed far west, where they would be prevented from contact with the whites.

The study of the language of the different Indian tribes of the west is one of peculiar interest to the philologist. In my memoir on the "Ethnography and Philology of the Indian Tribes of the Missouri Valley," in the possession of the Commissioner, I have attempted to give some illustrations of the languages of the tribes roaming about the sources of the Missouri. I hope, at some future period, to prepare a second part, containing examples of the languages of the different tribes along the lower Missouri. I have prepared these notes to aid me in making out their history.

The language of the Otoes belongs to the Dakota group, which comprises a large number of tribes: Iowa, Otoe, Missouri, Winnebago, Kansas, Osage, Quapaw, Omaha, and Ponka, of the lower Missouri. All the different bands of the Dakotas, Sioux, Crows, Minnetarees, Mandans, and the Assinneboins of the upper Missouri, belong to one group, and the careful student will discover a relationship more or less close in all their dialects; yet most of the tribes cannot understand each other, and interpreters are required for each.

The Rev. William Hamilton, of Bellevue, Sarpy county, who lived many years among the Iowa and Otoe Indians as a missionary, has written a very good grammar of their language, a copy of which I was able to procure.

NOTE.-I forgot to mention the Green Corn dance. This is going on every evening at this season of the year, as the corn is becoming fit for roasting. They build a fire in the centre of the lodge, and dance around, keeping time with a rude thumping on a gong. Their women and children all join in the dance.

I found two old village sites, one at Blue Spring, on the Big Blue; the foundations of the huts can be distinctly seen by the greater growth of weeds, and old pottery and arrow-heads have been found there. I think it was once the village of the Pawnees. At another locality, between Turkey creek and Big Blue, at their junction, a most beautiful locality, some specimens of pottery were dug up three feet under ground. It is plain there was a village here many years ago; how far back in the past it is impossible to tell. Some information may be obtained from the tribe, perhaps.

JOHNSON COUNTY.

The north branch of the Great Nemaha river runs nearly diagonally through Johnson county, in a southeasterly direction. It is the only important watercourse in the county, and its value to the inhabitants cannot be overestimated. The entire county is underlaid by rocks of the age of the upper coal measures; hence the geology is comparatively simple.

There are very few exposures along the Nemaha and its branches, and the high divides on either side present only rolling prairies covered with a luxuriant growth of grass, exhibiting every evidence of remarkable fertility, but having no timber and comparatively little living water.

From Beatrice our course was nearly northeast, passing over the divide be tween the waters of the Big Blue and those of the Nemaha. This divide, as usual, was treeless and nearly waterless for eighteen miles; yet, either to the right or to the left of our road, water and small trees could have been found within five or six miles. The grass was excellent, showing a fertile soil, and the surface was monotonously beautiful to the eye, but not an exposure of the underlying rocks could be seen.

On Yankee creek, a branch of the Nemaha, the first exhibition of the rocks was observed. A few limestone quarries were opened for obtaining building materials. The beds are thin, not more than from six to twelve inches in thickness, intercalated with beds of clay and sand. The surface is rather rugged, some abrupt hills, but usually clothed with grass down to the water's edge.

At Tecumseh a thin seam of coal has been opened, and is now worked with some success by Mr. Beatty. The drift is very similar to that before described

in my report of Pawnee county, and extends into the bank about 100 yards. Mr. Beatty has taken out about 1,000 bushels of coal, which he sells readily at the mine for twenty-five cents per bushel. It is undoubtedly the same bed that is opened on Turner's branch and at Frieze's mill, in Pawnee county, but it is not quite as thick or as good; it contains large masses of the sulphuret of iron and other impurities. The coal seam here varies much in thickness, from ten to fifteen inches. The cap-rock is a bed of limestone not more than two or three feet in thickness. A well was sunk in the village of Tecumseh sixty feet; a drill was driven down through rock and hard clay a few feet further, and passed through what the workmen thought to be three feet of good coal. This discovery created much excitement at the time, and increased the demand for the public lands in Johnson county. It afterwards turned out to be the same seam of coal worked by Mr. Beatty on the Nemaha, and was only eleven inches in thickness. The prospects, therefore, for workable beds of coal in Johnson county are no better than in the neighboring counties already examined. The evidence against any important bed of coal being found within the limits of Nebraska diminishes in force continually. I have already presented a portion of the evidence in former reports. The fact that all efforts in searching for coal in neighboring districts have resulted in failures, renders the prospect very doubtful. All the rocks at St. Joseph, Missouri, Leavenworth and Atchison, Kansas, hold a lower position geologically; yet borings have been made about 500 feet at Atchison and St. Joseph, and a shaft has been sunk about the same depth at Leavenworth, resulting in the discovery of a bed of very impure coal three feet thick, quite unfit for use. The evidence is quite strong that, as I have before suggested, Nebraska is unfortunately located on the western rim of the western coal basiu, and that no workable bed will ever be found in the State at a reasonable depth.

Tecumseh is the county seat of Johnson county, a small town located on the elevated prairie near Nemaha river. The following sketch will give some idea of its size, as well as the surface of the surrounding country:

From Tecumseh to the source of the Nemaha, about forty-five miles, I did not discover a single exposure of rock, and I could not ascertain that any had ever been observed by the settlers. We must conclude, therefore, that building materials in the shape of rock are not well distributed over the country; indeed, I do not know of any one in which I observed less.

The soil is very fertile, however, and in that respect will compare favorably with any in the State. In what are called the alluvial clays, near Tecumseh, were discovered some interesting remains of extinct animals, which appeared to have been abundant all over the west at that period. Just over the cap-rock of the coal seam, in stripping away the alluvial clays, Mr. Beatty discovered two molar teeth of a mastodon, in a fine state of preservation, one of which I was fortunate enough to secure.

About six miles west of Tecumseh, Mr. Caldwell, in digging a cellar, unearthed a fine molar tooth of an elephant, which probably belongs to the well known species Elephas americanus. This huge animal seemed to have ranged all over America, east of the Mississippi, and of late years its remains have been found in California and Colorado. This is the first specimen ever found in the Missouri valley, to my knowledge.

In 1858 I was fortunate enough to discover the remains of a number of species of extinct animals, in some pliocene tertiary deposits on the Niobrara river, and among them was a species of mastodon which Dr. Leidy, of Philadelphia, described as M. minificus, and an elephant a third larger than any ever before known, extinct or recent, Elephas imperator. These two species have never been found at any other localities, and were geologically much older than those first mentioned.