vi. The difficulty with the Crows is described by Washington Irving,

_Rocky Mountains_, i, pp. 216, 217, in which the white renegade Edward Rose figures as the hero who chastised the troublesome chiefs into obedience.--ED.

[183] Peter Wilson of Maryland was sub-agent for the Mandan with a salary of eight hundred dollars. He died after about one year's service.--ED.

[184] This date should be April, 1826. Maximilian has his dates one year behind, as is proved by the known time of Atkinson's Yellowstone Expedition.--ED.

[185] This should be 1827. See on this subject our volume xxii, p. 233, note 161.--ED.

[186] See notes 74 and 75, _ante_, pp. 84, 85, 87.--ED.

[187] See our volume xxii, p. 314, note 274, for Lamont.--ED.

[188] For the site of the Arikkara villages see our volume xxii, p. 335, note 299.--ED.

[189] Both these chiefs were still living at the Mandan villages when Lewis and Clark passed a winter (1804-05) among them. Black Cat, or Posecopsahe, lived at the second village, and was head chief of the tribe. Clark says of him (_Original Journals_, i, p. 256), "This chief possesses more integrity, firmness, intelligence, and perspicuity of mind than any Indian I have met with in this quarter." The Coal, or Shotaharrora, was chief of the first village. An Arikkara, he had been adopted by the Mandan, among whom he had risen to a chieftainship.--ED.

[190] The French name for a people closely related to the Minitaree, but speaking a somewhat different dialect, and considered by many philologists as a separate tribe. See our volumes v, p. 163, note 100; and xxii, p. 350, note 326.--ED.

[191] See the small plan of this spot on p. 363.--ED.

[192] This location of the Mandan villages corresponds with the account of Lewis and Clark, except that these explorers represent Ruhptare as situated on the north bank of the Missouri--doubtless their winter village, as explained by Maximilian. When the smallpox swept away the inhabitants of these villages (1837), the remnant of the Mandan abandoned them to the Arikkara, and formed one small village between their former towns and the mouth of Knife River. By 1845 they began moving to the Fort Berthold reservation, where they have since lived, located on the west bank of the Missouri. Their dwellings are chiefly log huts, although a few earth lodges may yet be seen. See O. D. Wheeler, "Last of the Mandans," in _Wonderland_, 1903, pp. 19-36.--ED.

[193] See illustration on p. 347, our volume xxii, for these burial stages.--ED.

[194] See Plates 29, 68, and 59, in the accompanying atlas, our volume xxv.--ED.

[195] In the first and greatest (Charbonneau did not remember in what year it occurred) the water rose forty feet above its usual level. Only the tops of the poplars were to be seen, and the ice lay above a month on the land, till it was melted by the sun. The second inundation took place on the 6th of April, 1826; the water rose, at daybreak, so rapidly and so high, that Charbonneau was compelled to escape, with some of his property, to the middle Manitari village, two miles from the Missouri, and to take refuge on a stack of maize, where he passed three days without fire, in a cold north wind, and drifting snow. The water rose twenty-five feet above its usual level. The inhabitants of fifteen tents of the Sioux, below the Sêche (near the Grand River, below the Arikkara villages), were all drowned. In the wooded point of land, at the mouth of the Chayenne River, lived a man named Pascal Seré, who traded with the Sioux. The water rising rapidly, he took refuge, with his goods, on the roof of his house, which, however, was, ere long, lifted up by the river and carried a good way down the stream. At this place the ice had formed a dam; the house was floated into the wood on the bank, and there deposited uninjured. In the year 1784, when there were such extensive inundations in Europe, they also occurred in America, as Volney relates of the Susquehanna.--MAXIMILIAN.

[196] Mr. Laidlow, at Fort Pièrre, rode out on a warm day about three years ago, to hunt a buffalo. At nightfall it began to rain, and the party was not well furnished with blankets. Towards morning, frost set in, and all their clothes were frozen quite stiff, so that many of the company did not, for some time, recover from the effects of this cold night.--MAXIMILIAN.

[197] Volney, who gives an admirable description of the climate of the United States, says, that July is the only month in the year without frost at Philadelphia.--MAXIMILIAN.

_Comment by Ed._ See Flint's _Letters_ in our volume ix, p. 237, note 121.

[198] This probably means 47° below freezing point; for if it were to be understood as 47° below c, of Fahrenheit, it would be 79° below freezing point--H. EVANS LLOYD.

_Comment by Ed._ A curious misconception on the part of Lloyd, the English translator, who could not believe this account of the intense cold on the western prairies of the United States. Maximilian undoubtedly intended just what he says--a temperature record not unknown in recent winters.

[199] See our volume v, p. 267.--ED.

[200] A more accurate comparison has shown that this antediluvian animal does not differ from the Mosasaurus, which has been found in many parts of North America; and Professor Goldfuss, at Bonn, will give us a description of it. I have already mentioned that I am, unfortunately, not able to furnish any particulars of the several specimens of this kind which I had obtained, because I have lost the whole collection by the burning of the Assiniboin steamer in the Missouri. Many of the specimens observed by me are described, with figures, in Dr. S. G. Morton's "Synopsis of the Organic Remains of the Cretaceous Groups of the United States. Illustrated by nineteen plates, &c. Philadelphia, 1834."--MAXIMILIAN.

[201] See, however, on the use of this coal, our volume xxii, p. 364, note 336.--ED.

[202] Frederick Pursh (1774-1820), a foreign botanist who came to the United States in 1799 and spent twelve years exploring its plant life. In 1811 he went to England where he published _Flora Americæ Septentrionalis_ (London, 1814). He died at Montreal while arranging a catalogue of Canadian plants. See also Bradbury's _Travels_ in our