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Show ~60 Lewis and Clm·ke·s Expedition Thursday 13. They left their encamJ)ment at suuri~e, and ascending the river hills went for six miles in a course gencf'ally southwest, over a country which though more waving than that of yesterday may still be considered level. At the extremity of this course they overlooked a mMt beautifuli>lain, where wct·e infinitely more buffaloc than we had ever before seen at a single view. 'ro the south west arose from the plain two mountains of a singular appear. ance and more like ramparts of high fortifications than works of nature. They are square figures with sides !'ising perpendicularly to the height of two hundred and fifty feet, formed of yellow clay, and the tops seemed to be level plains. Finding that the river here bore considerably to the south, and fearful of passing the falls before reaching the Uocky mountains, they now changed their cour!Se to the south, and leaving those insulated hills to the right proceeded across the plain. In this direction cai>tain Lewis bad gone about two miles when his ears were saluted with the agreeable sound of a fall of water, and as he advanced a spray which seemed driven by t.he high southwest wind at·ose above the Illain like a column of smoke and vanished in au instant. Towards this I>Oint he directed his steps, and the noise in· creasing as be approached soon became too tt·cmcndous to be mistaken for any thing but the great falls of the Missouri. Having travelled seven miles after first hearing the sound he reached the falls about twelve o'clock, the hills as he approached ·were difficult of access and two hundred feet high: down these he hurried with impatience and seating himself on some rocks undet• the centre of the falls, enjoyed the sublime spectacle of this stupendous object 'vhich since the creation had been lavishing its magnifi~ eencc upon the desert, unknown to civilization. · The river immediately at its cascade is three hundred yards wide, and is pressed in by a perpendicular cliff on the left, which rises to about one hundred feet and extends up the ~tream for a mile; on the right the ~luff is also pcrpendi- Up tl1e Jflissow·i. 261 ~ular for three hundred yards above the falls. }?or ninety or a hundt·~d yards from the left cliff, the water falls in one smooth even sheet, over a precipice of at least eighty feet. The remaining llart or the river {ll'Ccipitatcs itself with a more rapid curt•cnt, but being received as it falls by theirregular and somewhat projecting rocks below, forms a splendid prospect of perfectly white foam two hundred yards in length, and dghty in perJlcndiculat· elevation. This spray is dissipated into a thousand shapes, sometimes flying up in columns of fifteen or twenty feet, which arc then oppressed by larger masses of the white foam, on all which the sun impresses the brightest colours of the rainbow. As it rises from the fall it beats with fu1·y against a ledge of rocks which extend across the river at one hundr·ed and fiftyyards ft·om the precipice. From the pe1~pcn(]icular cliff on the north, to the distance of one hundr·cd and twenty yards, the rocks rise only a few feet above the water, aml when the river is high the stream finds a ch-annel across them forty yards wide, and near the higher parts of tl1e ledge which then rise about twenty feet, and terminate abruptly within eighty or ninety yards of the southern side. Between them and the perpendicular cliff on the south, the whole body of water runs with great swiftness. A few small cedars grow near this ridge of t•ocks which serves as a baJ'ricr to defend a small plain of about three acres shaded'' ith r.ottonwood, at the lower extremity of which is a gt·oye of the same tree, where arc sevct•al Indian cabins of sticks; below the point of them the river is divided by a large rock, several feet above the sut·facc of the water, and extending down the stream for twenty yards. At the distance of t.ht·cc hundred yards from the same ridge is a second abutment of solid perpendicular rock about sixty feet high, (ll'Ojccting at right angles ft·om the small (>lain on the north fo1· one hundred and thirty-four yards into the river. After leaving this, the Missouri again spreads itself to its usual distance of three hundred yards, though with more than its ordinary rapidity. |