History of the expedition under the command of Captains Lewis and Clark, to the sources of the Missouri, thence across the Rocky mountains and down the River Columbia to the Pacific Ocean : performed during the years 1804-5-6 by order of the government of the United States; Volume 1

Page 118

!96 Lewis tutd Clarl~e1s Expeditio11, place, and on the Missouri, as far bel~w as ~he ·w·~ite.eat·th. river, than on any other 11art of the ~Itssourt on tlns s1tle of the Cl1ayenne: the timber consists principally of cottonwood, with some small elm, ash, and box alder. On the sandbars and along the margin of the Ii\·er grows the small.Icafed willow; in the low grounds adjoining are scattered roscbusll­es three or fout· feet higb, tbe redberry, serviceberry and redwood. The higher plains are either immediately on the river, in which case they are gene1·ally timbered, and have an undergrowth like that of the low grounds, with the audi­tion of the broad-leafed willow, gooseberry, chokc«.'hcrry, purple currant, and honeysuckle: or they are between the low grounds and the hills, and for the most pa1·t without wood or any thing except large quautiti('S of wild hysop; this plant rises about two feet high, and like the willow of the sandbars is a favourite food of the buffaloe, elk, deer, gt•ouse, porcupine, hare, and t•aLbit. Tllis rin·•· which hatl been known to the French as the Roclae jaune, or as we have called it the Yellowstone, rises according to Indian infor­Jnation in the Rocky mountains; its sources arc near those of the Missouri and tlw Platte, and it may be navigated in eanoes almost to its ltrafl. lt runs fh·st through a moun,ain· ous country, but in many parts fertile and well timlte1 cd; H then waters a rich delightful land, b1·oken into vallie!! and meadows, and well supplied with wood and water till it reach­es uear the Missouri open meadows and low g t·ounds, suffi­ciently timbered on its borders. In the upper country its course is represented as very rap.id, but during the two last and largest portions, its current is much more gentle than that llfthe Missouri, which it resembles also in being turbid though with Jess !fediment. rrhc man who '\'as seut up the river, reported in the evening that he had gone about eight miles, that dut•ing that distance the river winds on both sides of a plain four or five miles wide, that the current was gentle ~nd much obstructed by sandbars, that at five miles he bad metwitk a large timbered island, three miles beyond which a U11 the .ilfissou1'i. 197 creek falls in on the S. "E. above a high bluff, in which are several strata of coal. ,..l'he country as far as he coulJ (!is­cern, resembled that of the l\1i ssom·i, and in the plain he met several of the bighorn animals, but they were 1oo shy to be obtained. The bed of the Yellowstone, as we observed it ncar the mouth, is composed of sanc.l and mud, without a stone of any kind. Just above the confluence " ·c measured the two rivct~s, and found the bed of the Misson l'i lhe Jwn­dred and twenty yards wide, the watea· occn]lying only three hundred and thirty, and the channel deep: white the Yellowstone, including its sandbar, occupied eight hun­dred and flfiy-cight yards, with two hundred and ninety­seven yards of water: the deepest part of the tlhannel is twelve feet, but the river is now :falling and seems to he near. ly at its summer hejght. April27. 'Vc left the mouth of the Yellowstone. From the point of junction a wood occupies the space between the two rivers, which at the distance of a mile comes 'vlthin two hundl'ed and fifty yards of each other . There a beautiful low plain commences, and widening as the l'ivcrs recede, extends along each of tl1em for seve1·al miles ' t·isin.g about half a mile fl'om the 1\lissouri into a plain twelve feet higher than itself. rrJlC low plain is a few inches above high wa­ter mark, and where it joins the higher plain there is a chan .. nel of sixty or seventy ya1•ds in width, ti.J••oug·h which a llart of the Missouri when at its greatest height }>asses into the Y cllowstone. At two and a half miles a hove the jun<.~­tion and between the high and low plain is a small Jake, two hundred yards wide, extending for a mae parallc1 with the Missouri along the edge of the UJlpca· plain. At the lower extremity of this lake, about four hundl'cd yards from the l\lissouri, and twice that distance fa·om the Yellowstone, is a situation highly eligible for a tt·acling establishment; it is in the high plain which extends back three miles in width, and seven ot· eight miles in length, along the Y cllowstone, where it is bordered by an r xtcnshe body of woodland, and