Note 30 — COMMENCEMENT OF THE EXPEDITION

Pattie is altogether too far north and west to meet the Osage River. The distance from the Platte makes it fairly certain that he was on the Republican fork of the Kansas. This stream rises in Colorado, and flows eastward across the arid plains of southern Nebraska as far as longitude 98°; it there enters the state of Kansas, and following a southeasterly course unites with the Smoky Hill River at Junction City, to form the Kansas. Its name arose from the fact that the village of the Republican Pawnee was located upon it until about 1815, when these tribesmen joined the Pawnee upon the Platte.—Ed.