thick forests, which have quite disappeared since that time, on the watershed between the Kaskaskia tributaries on the northwest and those of the St. Mary on the southeast.[1] Fortunately the journey at the outset was comparatively easy; the weather was warm for the season, though rainy. A good march was made on the seventh through the forests and out into Lively Prairie, half a mile northeast of Salem, Randolph County, where the course of the old trail is well known. Beyond this, Flat Prairie opened the way toward the "Great Rib," as the French knew the ridge in Grand Cote Prairie (La Prairie de la Grande Côte) on which the present village of Coultersville, Randolph County, stands. The first night's camp was pitched probably in Flat Prairie, between Salem and Coultersville.[2] The
- ↑ Draper MSS., xxv J, fol. 76. See map on page 21.
- ↑ It seems to the writer useless to spend time and space in attempting to place exactly Clark's camping-spots. He has made several exhaustive schedules of these camps and all the contradictions discussed pro and con. At best, any outline of camps must be purest conjecture, and therefore not authoritative or really valuable. In certain instances the camping-spots are definitely fixed by contemporaneous records. Only these will be definitely described in this record—the others being placed more or less indefinitely.
