Ing mountain torrent. It then spreads into a broad and comparatively gentle stream full of isl- ands. Precipitous peaks of blackish rock frown above the river in perpendicular elevations of 1,000 feet. Tne mountains, whose bases it sweeps, are covered with pines, cedars, and firs ; and moun- tain sheep are seen bounding on their summits, where they are apparently inaccessible. In this distance the mountains have an aspect of inex- pressible loneliness and grandeur.
The river then becomes almost a continued cataract for the distance of about 17 m. In this distance its perpendicular descent is 362 feet. The first fall is 98 feet; the second, 19; the third, 47; the fourth, 26. These falls are next to Niag- ara the grandest in the world. The river contin- ues rapid for a long distance beyond. The Roche Jaune, or Yellow Stone, is probably tlie largest tributary of the Missouri. It rises in tlie same ranges of mountains with the main river, and has many points of resemblance to it. It enters from the south by a mouth 850 yards wide. It is a broad, deep, and sweeping river; and at its junction appears the larger of the two. Its course is commonly calculated at 1,600 miles. But the size and length of all these tributaries are probably over rated. Its shores, for a long distance above its entrance, are heavily timbered, and its bottoms wide, and of the finest soil. Its eimvuic is deemed to be 1.880 m. above themouth of tile Missouri; and it was selected by the gov- ernment, as an eligible situation for a military post, and an extensive settlement. While bears, elk, and mountain sheep, are the principal ani- mals seen along this part of the river. The oth- er tributaries arc the Kansas, Platte, Osage, Lit- tle Missouri, Running Water, White and Milk Rivers.
At the point of junction with the Yellow Stone, the Missouri has wide and fine bottoms. But its banks are for the most part destitute of timber, and this for a long series of years will prevent its being inhabited. Thexe2x80x98Gates of the Rocky Moun- tains.' through which the Missouri seems to have torn itself a passage, are commonly described as among the sublimest spectacles in the world. For nearly 6 m. these mountains rise in black and per- pendicular masses 1,200 feet above the surface of the river. The chasm is little more than 250 yards wide ; and the deep and foaming waters of the Missouri rush through the passage, as if it were a cataract. The heart of the beholder is chilled, as he contemplates, in these wild and uninhabited regions, this conflict between the river and the mountains. The smooth and black walls of the cleft rise more than twice as high as the moun- tains on the Hudson,below West Point Every pas- senger up that river has been impressed with the grandeur of that scene in the midst of ameni- ty and life. What then must be the sensations of the passenger through the gates of the Rocky Mountains, who witnesses the proofs of this con- flict of nature, in a region three hundred leagues from civilization. Vast columns of the rock are torn from the mountains and lie along the banks of the river. |
The bottoms of the Missouri have a character, very distinguishable from those of the Upper Mis- sissippi. They are higher, not so wet, more san- ay, with trees which are not so large, but taller and straighter. Its alluvions are something nar- rower ; having for the first 500 m. a medial width of more than 4 m. Its bluffs, like those of the other river, are generally limestone, but not so perpendicular; and have more tendency to run into the mamelle form. The bottoms abound with deer, turkeys and small game. The river seldom overflows any part of its banks, in this distance It is little inclined to be swampy. There are much fewer lakes, bayous, and small ponds, than along the Mississippi. Prairies are scarcely seen on the banks of the river, within the distance of the first 400 m. of its course. It is heavily timbered, and yet from the softness of the wood, easily cleared The water, though uncommonly tiybid with a whitish earth, which it holds in suspension, soon and easily settles, and is then remarkably pure, pleasant and healthy winter. The river is so rapid and sweeping in its course, and its bed is compos- ed of such masses of sand, that it is continually shifting its sandbars. A chart of the river, as .t runs this year, gives little ground for calculation, in navigating it the next. It has numerous islands and generally near them is the most difficult to be stemmed.xe2x80x94Still more than the Mississippi be- low its mouth, it tears up in one place, and depos- ites in another; and makes more frequent and powerful changes in its channel, than any other western river.
Its bottoms are considerably settled for a dis- tance of 400 m. above its mouth. That of Chara- ton is the highest compact settlement. But the largest and most populous settlement in the state is that called Boones Lick. Indeed, there arc
American settlers, here and there, on the bottoms, above the Platte, and far beyond the limits of the state of Missouri. Above the Platte the open and prairie character of the country begins to de- velope. The prairies come quite into the banks ofthe river; and stretch from it indefinitely, in naked grass plains, where the traveller may wan der for days, without seeing either wood or water. xe2x80x94The xe2x80x98 Council Bluffs are an important mil itary station, about 600 m. up the Missouri. Be- yond this point commences a country of great interest and grandeur in many respects ; ana de nominated, by way of eminence, the Upper Mis souri. The country is composed of vast and al most boundless grass plains, through which stretch the Platte, the Yellow Stone, and the other rivers of this ocean of grass. The savages of this region have a peculiar physiognomy and mode of life. It is a country, where commence new tribes of plants. It is the home of buffaloes, elk, white bears, antelopes and mountain sheep. And its in- exhaustible supplies of game make it the paradise of hunters. Sometimes the river washes the ba- sis of the dark hills of a friable and crumbling soil. Here are found, as Lewis and Clarke, and other respectable travellers relate, large and sin- gular petrifactions, both animal and vegetable.xe2x80x94 On the top of one of these hills they Foqnd the petrified skeleton of a huge fish, 45 feet in length |