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Show Lewis cuu! Clru~ke's Expedition the diseovet•ies of a Mr. Fidler. 'Ve are now within one hundred miles of the Rokey mountains and in the latitude of 47° .2.,' 12" 8, and tberef01·e it is highly improbablt\ that the Missouri should make such a bend to the south before it reaches the Rocky mountains, as to ha.ve suffered 1\Ir. Fid. ler to come as low as ~5° along the eastern bot·ders without touching that river: yet the general course of ~laria•s river from this place for fifty-nine miles, as far as captain Lewjs ascended, was not·th 69° west, and the south branch, ot• what we consider the Missouri, which ca11tain Clarke had exa· mined as far as forty-five miles in a straight line, ran in a course south .29° west, and as far as it could be seen went considerably west of south, whence we conclude that the Missom·i itself enters the Rocky mountains to the north of 415°. In writing to the president from our winter quartet·s, we bad already taken the liberty of advancing the southern extremity or Mr. FidlCl·'s discoveries about a debl'Ce to the northward, and this ft·om Indian information as to the bear· ing of t.he point at which the 1\lissouri cntm·s the mountain; but we tl1ink actual observation will l,)acc it one degree still further to the northward. This information of:Mt·. Fitller however, incorrect as it is, atrot•(ls an additional reason fot· not pursuing l\laria's river·; for if he came as low even as 47° and saw only small streams coming down ft·om the mouot~ns, it is to be l>resumed that these rivulets do not penetrate the Rocky mountains so fat• as to allln·oach any navigal>lc branch of the Columbia, and thry arc most probably the remote waters of some northern braneh of the Missouri. In short, being ah·eady in latitude ~7° 24' we cannot reasonably hope by going faa·thcr to the northwal'd to find between this place and the Saskashawan any stream which can, as the Indians assure us the l\lissoul'i does, possess a navigable current for some distance in the Uocky mountains: the Indians had assured us also that the water of the Missouri was nearly Lransparent at the falls; this is the case l"ith the southern branch; that the falls lay a little to the Up the .Missow"i. 255 south of sunset from them; this too is tn favour of the south. ern fork, for it bears considerably south of this place which is only a few minutt-s to the northward of fort Mandan; that the falls are below the Rocky mountains and neat~ the northern termination of one range of those mountains: now there is a ridge of mountains which appear behind the South mountains and terminates to the southwest of us, at a suffici~nt distanoo from the unbt•oken chain of the Roclty mountains to allow space for several falls, indeed we fear for too many of them. If too the Indians hatl ever passed any stream as large as this southct•n fork on their way up the Missouri, they would have mentioned it; so that theil' silence seems to prove that this branch must be the Missout ·i. The body of water also which it discharges must have been acquired from a considerable distance in the mountains, for it could not have been collected in the parched plains between the Yellowstone and the Rocky mountains, since that country could not supply nourishment for tho dry channels which we passed on the south, and the travels of Mr. Fidler forbid us to believe that it could have been obtained from the mountains towards the northwest. '.fhese observations wl1icb satisfied our minds completely we communicated to the party: but every one of them were of a contrat·y opinion; and much of their belief depended on Ct•usatte, an expet·ienced waterman on the Missouri, who gave it as his decided judgment that the north fork was the genuine Missouri. 'l'hc men therefore mentioned that although they would most. cheerfully follow us wherever we should direct, yet they were afraid that the south fork would soon terminate in the Rocky mountains and leave us at a gt•eat distance ft·om the Columbia. In order that nothing might be omitted which could pt·event our fallio' into an error, it was agreed that one of us should ascend the southern hl'anch by land until \fe reached either the falis or the mountains. In tbe meantime in order to li,hton |