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Show BEAVER BAMS- ATLANTIC WATERS. 241 A meridian observation gave for latitude 41° 28' 28". A few aspens occur in the bottom, with abundance of artemisia, some of which were six and eight feet in height. An occasional outcrop of coal was also observed;, the argillaceous shale, some three hundred feet in height, through which the creek cuts a channel, dipping north- westerly at an angle of 20°. Beyond this point the creek makes another cafion, which, requiring some reconnoissance, we turned down into a pretty little bottom, fringed with willows, currant- bushes, and birch, and encamped, having made only fourteen miles. We found the creek filled, at short intervals, with beaver- dams, some of which had been but recently constructed, the chips made by cutting down the bushes, and the paths made through the grass and brush by dragging them into the water, being still plainly discernible. The stream furnishes some small fish, among which were speckled trout. Friday, September 20.- Morning clear and bright. Ther. at sunrise, 81°. Clouds however soon began to gather, and finally covered the whole sky. It had been determined to go on until ten or eleven o'clock, and then to make a halt of part of two days to rate our chronometers, and to obtain, if practicable, a series of satisfactory observations for longitude. But the sun being entirely obscured, and it coming on to rain, the march was continued during the day. It unexpectedly cleared in time to obtain a meridian observation for the latitude. Leaving the camp- ground early, we continued up the right bank of the Muddy, over rather rough ground, covered with sage, for a couple of miles, to within one mile of the point where the main fork comes in from the Park Mountains on the south- east, where it heads. Here we turned to the left up a beautiful pass, about a mile and a- half in length, with a uniform gentle ascent to its summit. From the top of this pass we continued for four miles over a gently undulating country, sloping to the right into the drainage of the Muddy. Here we reached the dividing height between the water* of the Pacific and those of the Atlantic. One universal shout arose at the announcement of this fact; and visions of home and all its joys floated before the imagination in vivid brightness. That to which we had so long been looking forward, as a thing that might one day be, now seemed almost within our grasp; for we knew that the waters which we had at length reached, flowed, in one unbroken stream, almost to the very 16 |
