Ch. 11: Amber, Malachite, Serpentine, Bowenite, Williamsite, ... Catlinite, etc.

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	UNITED STATES, CANADA AND MEXICO	207

	exactly on its highest elevation, as its general course is north and south and its southern extremity terminates in a gradual slope. Our approach to it was from the east, and the ascent, for the distance of fifty miles, over a continued succession of slopes and terraces, almost imperceptibly rising one above the other that seemed to lift us to a great height. The singular character of this majestic mound continues on the west side in its descent towards the Missouri. There is not a tree or bush to be seen from the highest summit of the ridge, though the eye may range east and west almost to a boundless extent, over a surface covered with a short grass that is green at one's feet and about him, but changing to blue in distance, like nothing but the blue and vastness of the ocean." Of his struggles with Indians to visit the place, he relates: "We were persisting in the most peremptory terms in the determination to visit their great medicine (mystery) place, where, it seems, they had often resolved no white man should ever be allowed to go. They took us to be ' officers sent by Government to see what this place was worth.' As 'this red stone was a part of their flesh,' it would be sacrilegious for white men to touch or take it away—' a hole would be made in their flesh and the blood could never be made to stop running.' My companion, Robert S. Wood, and myself were in a fix, one that demanded the use of every energy we had about us. Astounded at so unexpected a rebuff, and more than ever excited to go ahead and see what was to be seen at this strange place, in this emergency we mutually agreed to go forward, even if it should be at the hazard of our lives." He says, concerning the quarry itself: " The thousands of inscriptions and paintings on the rocks at this place, as well as the ancient diggings for the pipestone, will afford amusement for the world who will visit it, without furnishing the least data, I should think, of the time at which these excavations commenced, or of the period at which the Sioux assumed the exclusive right to it." Mr. Catlin tells of the many superstitions about smoking among the Indians, and says: " The red stone of which these pipebowls are made is, in my estimation, a great curiosity, inasmuch as I am sure it is a variety of steatite (if it be steatite) differing from that of any

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