Return of Spring.- Appearance of Snakes.- Great Flights of Wild Pigeons.- Renewal of the Voyage.- Night Encampments.- Platte River.
On the 28th, they breakfasted on one of the islands which lie at the mouth of the Nebraska or Platte River - the largest tributary of the Missouri, and about six hundred miles above its confluence with the Mississippi.
It proved, however, that they were a part of the war party, the skeleton of whose canoe had been seen at the mouth of the river Platte, and the reflection of whose fires had been descried in the air.
The Kansas resemble the Osages in features, dress, and language; they raise corn and hunt the buffalo, ranging the Kansas River, and its tributary streams; at the time of the captain's visit, they were at war with the Pawnees of the Nebraska, or Platte River.
It is but recently that the wild turkey has been killed on the Nebraska, or Platte; and his travelling competitor, the wild bee, appeared there about the same time.
On leaving Omaha, it passes along the left bank of the
Platte River as far as the junction of its northern branch, follows its southern branch, crosses the Laramie territory and the Wahsatch Mountains, turns the Great Salt Lake, and reaches Salt Lake City, the Mormon capital, plunges into the Tuilla Valley, across the American Desert, Cedar and Humboldt Mountains, the Sierra Nevada, and descends, via Sacramento, to the Pacific--its grade, even on the Rocky Mountains, never exceeding one hundred and twelve feet to the mile.
"Anyway, she came pretty close to crossin' the plains, because she was born in a wagon on the River
Platte on the way out."
In their front were stretched those broad plains, which extend, with so little diversity of character, to the bases of the Rocky Mountains; and many long and dreary miles in their rear, foamed the swift and turbid waters of La
Platte.
And we talked of old ships, of sea-accidents, of break-downs, dismast ings; and of a man who brought his ship safe to Liverpool all the way from the River
Platte under a jury rudder.
One of the loveliest dance events of 1998 is Mark Morris's poignant yet wickedly apt restaging of Jean-Philippe Rameau's 1745 hit, the comedie-lyrique,
Platte. In its three sold-out American premiere performances as the centerpiece of Berkeley's early music festival, this Royal Opera Covent Garden production, superbly conducted by Nicholas McGegan with magical costumes by couturier Isaac Mizrahi, revealed how cruelly humorous a baroque ballet bouffon can be.
One of the plants, the
Platte thistle (Cirsium canescens), is unique to the sandhills.
Sediment piled up in the North Fork of the South
Platte River, forming a natural sand dam that backed up more than eight feet of water.
