Note I-60 — Chapter I · ITINERARY: UP THE MISSOURI AND OSAGE RIVERS, AND THROUGH KANSAS TO THE PAWNEE VILLAGE ON THE REPUBLICAN RIVER, JULY 15TH-SEPT. 30TH, 1806.

If Pike bore as much N. of W. as his dotted trail seems to indicate, the mileage would fetch him on Cottonwood r. about the situation of Cedar Grove and Cedar Point, which are within a mile or two of each other and of the boundary between Chase and Marion cos., and about 6 m. down river from Florence, Marion Co. He is evidently in the loop which the Cottonwood makes S. E. from Marion to Florence, and then gradually N. E. to the vicinity of Cottonwood Falls. If the old Kansas Indian trail the map lays down could be recovered or identified, it would serve to locate him still more precisely. He crosses the Cottonwood and camps on its left bank. If we attentively regard the camp-marks of the 12th and 13th, we find them close together, N. of the Cottonwood, S. of a creek flowing E., and W. of a pair of creeks flowing S. These requirements are fulfilled, if we take the one running E. to be Middle creek, which falls in by Elmdale, 10 m. below Cedar Grove; and the other two, those that fall in together at Marion, 12 m. (direct) above Cedar Grove. It is true there are several creeks nearer, on the same side, as Silver, Bruno, and Martin, but these are all smaller than such as Pike usually charts, and, moreover, he could not go his 9 m. to-morrow in any direction without getting beyond them.