Here, if anywhere, they must be prepared for attacks from hostile Indians.

At this point, the journal sets forth this interesting observation:-- "Since we passed in 1804, a very obvious change has taken place in the current and appearance of the Missouri.

In places where at that time there were sandbars, the current of the river now passes, and the former channel of the river is in turn a bank of sand.

Sandbars then naked are now covered with willows several feet high; the entrance of some of the creeks and rivers has changed in consequence of the quantity of mud thrown into them; and in some of the bottoms are layers of mud eight inches in depth." The streams that flow into the Missouri and Mississippi from the westward are notoriously fickle and changeable.

Within a very few years, some of them have changed their course so that farms are divided into two parts, or are nearly wiped out by the wandering streams.