Fort Mandan, North Dakota — Patrick Gass: December 9, 1804

down to the bottom where the two men were taking care of
the meat. We found some buffaloe had come into the woods,
and we killed ten of them and a deer. Having dressed them
we loaded four horses with meat and sent them with some
north, and longitude 101. 25. West. Now this is probably near the longitude of the
Mandan villages ; for as it appears by the above statement, and by other observations
of Captain Lewis nearer the mouth of the Missouri, that the course up the river is, for
a considerable distance, nearly due west, and afterwards nearly due north, the dif-
ference of longitude and latitude, between the mouth, of the Missouri and the point
where Mr. Thompson took his observations, may be added together, in estimating the
distance; and this will give about 8 1-2 degrees of latitude and 9 degrees of longitude,
making in the whole 17 1-2 degrees, which from the very meandering course of the
Missouri may be sufficient to include 1610 miles of it, the distance from the mouth
to the villages. In the map of North America included in the Atlas accompanying
Pinkerton’s Geography, published in 1804, this part of the Missouri appears pretty
accurately laid down; but in the map of Louisiana in the same set it is equally erro-
neous with any other.
60 GASS’S JOURNAL OF THE
of the party to the fort: Captain Lewis and the rest of us
encamped out, and had, tolerable lodging with the assistance
of the hides of the buffaloe we had killed.