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Show THE MAUVAISES TERRES. 229 pulpy thorn, lie on its banks before the mountains, which frequently come very near to the river, with large blocks of sand-stone at their foot, between which fragments of selenite are always seen. It were to be wished that the geologist and the painter might devote a considerable time to examine this part of the country, step by step; they would furnish a work of the highest interest. In many places the loose pieces had slipped down so as to form buttresses; in other parts the mountains were spotted with groups of pines. We here collected several plants, and Mr. Bodmer made a sketch of the mountain tops. (Plate XXXV., Fig. 28). The pretty striped squirrel, which lives in small round holes in the clay walls, was here frequently seen, and I conjecture that, if these mountains were closely examined, several species of this animal would be found. The country was so interesting that we waited with impatience for the morning of the 2nd of August, when a bright warm sunshine illumined the singular eminences which surrounded us. Several sketches were taken of them, but very few in proportion to their number, for large folio volumes might be filled with such representations. We saw several islands, among which was doubtless Lewis and Clarke's Good Punch Island, a , name which is unworthy of being transmitted to posterity. It is, in fact, difficult to find all the islands mentioned by those travellers, as many of them have certainly been since destroyed, and others arisen in their room. At seven o'clock in the morning the thermometer was at 80°, and we came to a rapid, which we passed by the aid of the towing-rope and the poles. At a bend of the river we thought we saw the ruins of an old castle, and then reached the mouth of Lewis and Clarke's Windsor or Winchers Creek, where those travellers say they had the first sight of the Rocky Mountains, which, however, was certainly only the Little Rocky Mountain range. At this creek, the real pass of the Mauvaises Terres begins. The Missouri, while passing between these mountains, does not receive any lateral stream whatever, and few animals inhabit these heights, except great numbers of mountain sheep. Dreidoppel, who landed on the bank of Windsor Creek, heard a loud noise resembling what appeared to him to be that of a waterfall, which we could not examine. After one o'clock in the afternoon, we came to Lewis and Clarke's Softshell Turtle Creek, which may be considered as the western boundary of the Mauvaises Terres. Here we saw some buffaloes, and heard the cries of the prairie dogs. Mountain tops (Plate XXXV., Figs. 21, 25, 26), with singular pinnacles, look like the Glacier des Bossons in the valley of Chamouny ; in other places, the mountains were regularly rounded, and divided into small cones. After a thunder-storm the evening was fine and serene. We saw some wild sheep on the hills, in pursuit of which some of our young men ascended without success. On the bank of the river they found pieces of petrified wood, of a grey or blackish colour, which is here very common, in large pieces, and entire trunks. On the following morning, the 3rd of August, we were at a second rapid, called Elk Fawn Rapid, which we passed as before. The mountains here presented a rude wilderness, looking in part like a picture of destruction; large blocks of sand-stone lay scattered around, among which I |