Lewis: July 17, 1805

Wednesday, July 17th, 1805. The sunflower is in bloom and abundant in the river bottoms. The Indians of the Missouri, particularly those who do not cultivate maize (corn), make great use of the seed of this plant for bread, or use it to thicken their soup. They most commonly first parch the seed and then pound it between two smooth stones until they reduce it to a fine meal. To this they sometimes merely add a portion of water and drink it in that state, or add a sufficient quantity of marrow grease to reduce it to the consistency of common dough and eat it in that manner. The last preparation I think much the best, and I have eaten it in that state heartily and think it a palatable dish. There is but little of the broad-leafed cottonwood above the falls, the much greater portion being of the narrow-leafed kind. There is a great abundance of red, yellow, purple, and black currants, and serviceberries now ripe and in great perfection. I find these fruits very pleasant, particularly the yellow currant, which I think vastly preferable to those of our gardens. The shrub which produces this fruit rises to the height of 6 or 8 feet; the stem is simple, branching, and erect. They grow closely associated in clumps either in the open or in timbered lands near the watercourses. The leaf is petiolate (stemmed), of a pale green, and resembles in its form that of the red currant common to our gardens. The perianth of the fructification is one-leaved, five-cleft, abbreviated, and tubular; the corolla is monopetalous (single-petaled), funnel-shaped, very long, superior, withering, and of a fine orange color. There are five stamens and one pistil; of the first, the filaments are capillary (hair-like), inserted into the corolla, equal, and converging; the anther is ovate, bifid, and incumbent. With respect to the second, the germ is roundish, smooth, inferior, pedicelled, and small; the style is long and thicker than the stamens, simple, cylindrical, smooth, and erect, withering and remaining with the corolla until the fruit is ripe. The stigma is simple, obtuse, and withering. The fruit is a berry about the size and much the shape of the red currant of our gardens, like them growing in clusters supported by a compound footstalk, but the peduncles which support the several berries are longer in this species and the berries are more scattered. It is quite as transparent as the red currant of our gardens, not so acidic, and more agreeably flavored. The other species differ not at all in appearance from the yellow except in the color and flavor of their berries. I am not confident as to the color of the corolla, but all those which I observed while in bloom as we came up the Missouri were yellow; but they might possibly have all been of the yellow kind, and the purple, red, and black currants here may have corollas of different tints from that of the yellow currant.

The serviceberry differs somewhat from that of the U.S. The bushes are small, sometimes not more than 2 feet high and scarcely ever exceeding 8, and are proportionately small in their stems, growing very thickly associated in clumps. The fruit is the same form but for the most part larger, more luscious, and of so deep a purple that on first sight you would think them black. There are two species of gooseberries here also, but neither of them yet ripe. The chokecherries are also abundant and not yet ripe. There is box elder, red willow, and a species of sumac here also. There is a large pine tree situated on a small island at the head of these rapids above our camp; it being the first we have seen for a long distance near the river, I called the island Pine Island. This range of the Rocky Mountains runs from SE to NW.

At 8 A.M. this morning Capt. Clark arrived with the party. We took breakfast here, after which I had the box which contained my instruments taken by land around Tower Rock to the river above the rapid; the canoes ascended with some difficulty but without loss or injury, with their loads.

After making those observations we proceeded, and as the canoes were still heavily loaded, all persons not employed in navigating the canoes walked on shore. The river cliffs were so steep and frequently projecting into the river with their perpendicular points in such a manner that we could not pass them by land; we were therefore compelled to pass and repass the river very frequently in the course of the evening. The bottoms are narrow; the river also is narrow, deep, and with but little current. The river is from 70 to 100 yards wide. There is but little timber on the river; aspen constitutes a part of that little. We see more pine than usual on the mountains, though still but thinly scattered. We saw some mountain rams or bighorn animals this evening, and no other game whatever; and indeed there is but little appearance of any. In some places both banks of the river are formed for a short distance of nearly perpendicular rocks of a dark black granite of great height; the river has the appearance of having cut its passage in the course of time through this solid rock. We ascended about 6 miles this evening from the entrance of the mountain and camped on the starboard side, where we found as much wood as made our fires. Mosquitoes are still troublesome; gnats not as much so.

Capt. C. now informed me that after I left him yesterday, he saw the poles of a large lodge in a prairie on the starboard side of the river which was 60 feet in diameter and appeared to have been built last fall; there were the remains of about 80 leather lodges near the place of the same apparent date. This large lodge was of the same construction as that mentioned above the White Bear Islands. The party came on very well and camped on the lower point of an island near the starboard shore that evening. This morning they had set out early and proceeded without obstruction until they reached the rapid where I was camped.