Ch 12A Index Ch 13A
The Journals of Lewis And Clark
Chapter 13
Great Falls of the Missouri
It continued to rain moderately all last night. This morning was cloudy until about ten o'clock, when it cleared off and became a fine day. We breakfasted, and set out about sunrise and continued our route down the river bottoms through the mud and water as yesterday, though the road was somewhat better than yesterday, and we were not so often compelled to wade in the river. We passed some dangerous and difficult bluffs. The river bottoms affording all the timber which is to be seen in the country, they are filled with innumerable little birds that resort thither, either for shelter or to build their nests. When sun began to shine today, these birds appeared to be very gay and sang most enchantingly. I observed among them the brown thrush, robin, turtledove, linnet, goldfinch, the large and small blackbird, wren, and several other birds of less note. Some of the inhabitants of the prairies also take refuge in these woods at night, or from a storm.
The whole of my party to a man, except myself, were fully persuaded that this river was the Missouri. But, being fully of opinion that it was neither the main stream, nor that which it would be advisable for us to take, I determined to give it a name, and in honor of Miss Maria W--d, called it Maria's River. It is true that the hue of the waters of this turbulent and troubled stream but illy comport with the pure, celestial virtues and amiable qualifications of that lovely fair one. But, on the other hand, it is a noble river, one destined to become, in my opinion, an object of contention between the two great powers of America and Great Britain with respect to the adjustment of the northwesterly boundary of the former. And that it will become one of the most interesting branches of the Missouri in a commercial point of view I have but little doubt as it abounds with animals of the fur kind, and most probably furnishes a safe and direct communication to that productive country of valuable furs exclusively enjoyed at present by the subjects of His Britannic Majesty. In addition to which, it passes through a rich, fertile, and one of the most beautifully picturesque countries that I ever beheld, through the wide expanse of which innumerable herds of living animals are seen, its borders garnished with one continued garden of roses, while its lofty and open forests are the habitation of myriads of the feathered tribes who salute the ear of the passing traveler with their wild and simple yet sweet and cheerful melody.
I arrived at camp about 5 o'clock in the evening much fatigued, where I found Captain Clark and the balance of the party waiting our return with some anxiety for our safety, having been absent near two days longer than we had engaged to return. On our way to camp we had killed 4 deer and two antelopes, the skins of which, as well as those we killed while on the route, we brought with us. Maria's River may be stated generally from sixty to a hundred yards wide, with a strong and steady current and possessing 5 feet of water in the most shallow parts.
I now gave myself this evening to rest from my labors, took a drink of grog, and gave the men who had accompanied me each a dram. Captain Clark plotted the courses of the two rivers as far as we had ascended them. I now began more than ever to suspect the veracity of Mr. Fidler, or the correctness of his instruments. For I see that Arrowsmith, in his late map of N. America, has laid down a remarkable mountain in the chain of the Rocky Mountains, called the Tooth, nearly as far south as latitude 45, and this is said to be from the discoveries of Mr. Fidler. We are now within a hundred miles of the Rocky Mountains and I find from my observation of the 3rd inst. that the latitude of this place is 47 24' 12" 8. The river must, therefore, turn much to the south between this and the Rocky Mountains to have permitted Mr. Fidler to have passed along the eastern border of these mountains as far S. as nearly 45 without even seeing it. But from hence, as far as Captain Clark had ascended the S. fork or Missouri, being the distance of 55 miles (45 miles in a straight line), its course is S. 29� W., and it still appeared to bear considerably to the W. of south as far as he could see it. I think, therefore, that we shall find that the Missouri enters the Rocky Mountains to the north of 45�.
Captain Lewis, 8 June 1805
Some rain in the evening. The left-hand fork rose a little.
Captain Clark 8 June 1805
Mr. Fidler, incorrect as it is, strongly argued the necessity of taking the south fork, for if he has been along the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains as far as even latitude 47 �, which I think fully as far south as he ever was in that direction, and saw only small rivulets making down from those mountains, the presumption is very strong that those little streams do not penetrate the Rocky Mountains to such distance as would afford rational grounds for a conjecture that they had their sources near any navigable branch of the Columbia. And if he has seen those rivulets as far south as 47�, they are most probably the waters of some northern branch of the Missouri or south fork, probably the river called by the Indians Medicine River. We therefore cannot hope by going northwardly of this place, being already in latitude 47 � 24", to find a stream between this place and the Saskatchewan which does penetrate the Rocky Mountains and which, agreeably to the information of the Indians with respect to the Missouri, does possess a navigable current some distance in those mountains. The Indian information also argued strongly �n favor of the south fork. They informed us that the water of the Missouri was nearly transparent at the Great Falls (this is the case with the water of the south fork), that the falls lay a little to the south of sunset from them (this is also probable, as we are only a few minutes north of Fort Mandan, and the south fork bears considerably south from hence to the mountains); and that falls are below the Rocky Mountains and near the northern termination of one range of those mountains. A range of mountains which appear behind the S. mountains (and which appear to terminate S.W. from this place and on this side of the unbroken chain of the Rocky Mountains) gives us hope that this part of their information is also correct, and there is sufficient distance between this and the mountains for many, and I fear, for us, much too many falls.
Another impression on my mind is that, if the Indians had passed any stream as large as the south fork on their way to the Missouri, they would not have omitted mentioning it. And the south fork, from its size and complexion of its waters, must enter the Rocky Mountains and, in my opinion, penetrates them to a great distance, or else whence such an immense body of water as it discharges? It cannot proceed from the dry plains to the N.W. of the Yellowstone River on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, for those numerous large dry channels which we witnessed on that side as we ascended the Missouri forbid such a conjecture. And that it should take its sources to the N.W. under those mountains, the travels of Mr. Fidler forbid us to believe.
Those ideas as they occurred to me I endeavored to impress on the minds of the party, all of whom, except Captain Clark, being still firm in the belief that the N. fork was the Missouri and that which we ought to take. They said, very cheerfully, that they were ready to follow us anywhere we thought proper to direct; but that they still thought that the other was the river, and that they were afraid that the south fork would soon terminate in the mountains and leave us at a great distance from the Columbia.
Cruzat, who had been an old Missouri navigator and who, from his integrity, knowledge, and skill as a waterman, had acquired the confidence of every individual of the party, declared it as his opinion that the N. fork was the true genuine Missouri and could be no other.
Finding them so determined in this belief, and wishing, if we were in an error, to be able to detect it and rectify it as soon as possible, it was agreed between Captain Clark and myself that one of us should set out with a small party by land up the south fork, and continue our route up it until we found the falls or reached the snowy mountains, by which means we should be enabled to determine this question pretty accurately.
This expedition I preferred undertaking, as Captain Clark is the best waterman, &c., and determined to set out the day after tomorrow. I wished to make some further observations at this place, and as we had determined to leave our blacksmith's bellows and tools here, it was necessary to repair some of our arms, and particularly my air gun, the main spring of which was broken, before we left this place. These and some other preparations will necessarily detain us two, perhaps three, days.
I felt myself very unwell this morning, and took a portion of salts, from which I feel much relief this evening.
The cache being completed, I walked to it and examined its construction. It is in a high plain about 40 yards distant from a steep bluff of the south branch on its northern side The situation a dry one, which is always necessary. A place being fixed on for a cache, a circle about 20 inches in diameter is first described, the turf or sod of this circle is carefully removed, being taken out as entire as possible in order that it may be replaced in the same situation when the cache is filled and secured. This circular hole is then sunk perpendicularly to the depth of one foot, if the ground be not firm, somewhat deeper. They then begin to work it out wider as they proceed downward, until they get it about six or seven feet deep, giving it nearly the shape of the kettle, or lower part of a large still. Its bottom is also somewhat sunk in the center.
The dimensions of the cache are in proportion to the quantity of articles intended to be deposited. As the earth is dug, it is handed up in a vessel and carefully laid on a skin or cloth, and then carried to some place where it can be thrown in such manner as to conceal it, usually into some running stream where it is washed away and leaves no traces which might lead to the discovery of the cache.
Before the goods are deposited, they must be well dried. A parcel of small dry sticks are then collected, and with them a floor is made, three or four inches thick, which is then covered with some dry hay or a raw hide well dried. On this, the articles are deposited, taking care to keep them from touching the walls by putting other dry sticks between as you stow away the merchandise. When nearly full, the goods are covered with a skin, and earth thrown in and well rammed until, with the addition of the turf first removed, the hole is on a level with the surface of the ground. In this manner, dried skins or merchandise will keep perfectly sound for several years.
The traders of the Missouri, particularly those engaged in the trade with the Sioux, are obliged to have frequent recourse to this method in order to avoid being robbed.
Most of the men are busily engaged dressing skins for clothing. In the evening, Cruzat gave us some music on the violin and the men passed the evening in dancing, singing, &c., and were extremely cheerful.
Captain Lewis, 9 June 1805
In order to guard against accidents, we thought it well to conceal some ammunition here, and accordingly buried a tin canister of 4 lbs. of powder and an adequate quantity of lead near our tent, a canister of 6 lbs. lead and an axe, in a thicket up the S. fork, three hundred yards distant from the point. We concluded that we still could spare more ammunition for this deposit. Captain Clark was therefore to make a further deposit in the morning. In addition to one keg of 20 lbs. and an adequate proportion of lead which had been laid by to be buried in the large cache, we now selected the articles to be deposited in this cache which consisted of two best falling axes, one auger, a set of planes, some files, blacksmith's bellows, and hammers, stake, tongs, &c., 1 keg of flour, 2 kegs of parched meal, 2 kegs of pork, 1 keg of salt, some chisels, a cooper's awl, some tin cups, 2 muskets, 3 brown bearskins, beaver skins, horns of the big-horned animal, a part of the men's robes, clothing, and all their superfluous baggage of every description, and beaver traps.
We drew up the red pirogue into the middle of a small island at the entrance of Maria's River, and secured and made her fast to the trees to prevent the high floods from carrying her off. Put my brand on several trees standing near her, and covered her with brush to shelter her from the effects of the sun. At 3 P.M. we had a hard wind from the S.W., which continued about an hour, attended with thunder and rain. As soon as the shower had passed over we drew out our canoes, corked, repaired, and loaded them I still feel myself somewhat unwell with the dysentery, but determined to set out in the morning up the south fork or Missouri, leaving Captain Clark to complete the deposit and follow me by water with the party. Accordingly, gave orders to Drouilliard, Joseph Fields, Gibson, and Goodrich to hold themselves in readiness to accompany me in the morning. Sacagawea, our Indian woman, is very sick this evening. Captain Clark bled her. The night was cloudy with some rain.
This morning I felt much better but somewhat weakened by my disorder. At 8 A.M., I swung my pack and set forward with my little party. Proceeded to the point where Rose [Tansy] River, a branch of Maria's River, approaches the Missouri so nearly. From this height we discovered a herd of elk on the Missouri, just above us, to which we descended and soon killed four of them. We butchered them and hung up the meat and skins in view of the river in order that the party might get them.
I determined to take dinner here, but before the meal was prepared I was taken with such violent pain in the intestines that I was unable to partake of the feast of marrowbones My pain still increased, and toward evening was attended with a high fever. Finding myself unable to march, I determined to prepare a camp of some willow boughs and remain all night. Having brought no medicine with me, I resolved to try an experiment with some simplex, and the chokecherry which grew abundantly in the bottom first struck my attention.
I directed a parcel of the small twigs to be gathered stepped of their leaves, cut into pieces of about two inches in length, and boiled in water until a strong black decoction of an astringent bitter taste was produced. At sunset I took a pint of this decoction, and about an hour after repeated the dose. By 10 in the evening, I was entirely relieved from pain, and in fact, every symptom of the disorder forsook me. My fever abated, a gentle perspiration was produced, and I had a comfortable and refreshing night's rest.
Goodrich, who is remarkably fond of fishing, caught several dozen fish of two different species, one about 9 inches long, of white color, round, and in form and fins resembling the white chub common to the Potomac. The other species is precisely the form and about the size of the well-known fish called the hickory shad, or old wife.
Captain Lewis, 10 June 1805
Captain Lewis, 12 June 1805
Captain Clark, 12 June 1805
I had proceeded on this course about two miles with Goodrich at some distance behind me, when my ears were saluted with the agreeable sound of a fall of water, and advancing a little further. I saw the spray rise above the plain like a column of smoke. which would frequently disappear again in an instant, caused, I presume, by the wind which blew pretty hard from the S.W. I did not, however, lose my direction to this point, which soon began to make a roaring too tremendous to be mistaken for any cause short of the Great Falls of the Missouri. Here I arrived about 12 o clock, having traveled, by estimate, about 15 miles. I hurried down the hill, which was about 200 feet high and difficult of access, to gaze on this sublimely grand spectacle. I took my position on the top of some rocks about 20 feet high opposite the center of the Falls. This chain of rocks appears once to have formed a part of those over which the waters tumbled, but in the course of time has been separated from it to the distance of 150 yards, lying parallel to it, and an abutment against which the water, after falling over the precipice, beats with great fury. This barrier extends on the right to the perpendicular cliff which forms that border of the river, but to the distance of 120 yards next to the cliff it is but a few feet above the level of the water, and here the water in very high tides appears to pass in a channel of 40 yards next to the higher part of the ledge of rocks. On the left, it extends within 80 or 90 yards of the larboard cliff, which is also perpendicular. Between this abrupt extremity of the ledge of rocks and the perpendicular bluff, the whole body of water passes with incredible swiftness.
Immediately at the cascade, the river is about 300 yards wide. About 90 or 100 yards of this, next the larboard bluff, is a smooth even sheet of water falling over a precipice of at least 80 feet; the remaining part, about 200 yards wide, on my right, forms the grandest sight I ever beheld. The height of the fall is the same as the other, but the irregular and somewhat projecting rocks below receive the water in its passage down, and break it into a perfect white foam which assumes a thousand forms in a moment, sometimes flying up in jets of sparkling foam to the height of fifteen or twenty feet, which are scarcely formed before large rolling bodies of the same beaten and foaming water are thrown over and conceal them. In short, the rocks seem to be most happily fixed to present a sheet of the whitest beaten froth for 200 yards in length and about 80 feet perpendicular.
The water, after descending, strikes against the abutment before mentioned, or that on which I stand, and seems to reverberate, and being met by the more impetuous current, they roll and swell into half-formed billows of great height which rise and again disappear in an instant. The abutment of rock defends a handsome little bottom of about three acres which is diversified and agreeably shaded with some cottonwood trees.
In the lower extremity of the bottom there is a very thick grove of the same kind of trees which are small. In this wood, there are several Indian lodges formed of sticks. A few small cedar grow near the ledge of rocks where I rest. Below the point of these rocks, at a small distance, the river is divided by a large rock which rises several feet above the water, and extends downward with the stream for about 20 yards. About a mile before the water arrives at the pitch, it descends very rapidly, and is confined on the larboard side by a perpendicular cliff of about 100 feet. On the starboard side it is also perpendicular for about three hundred yards above the pitch, where it is then broken by the discharge of a small ravine, down which the buffalo have a large beaten road to the water, for it is but in very few places that these animals can obtain water near this place, owing to the steep and inaccessible banks. I see several skeletons of the buffalo lying in the edge of the water near the starboard bluff which I presume have been swept down by the current and precipitated over this tremendous fall.
About 300 yards below me, there is another abutment of solid rock with a perpendicular face and about 60 feet high, which projects from the starboard side at right angles to the distance of 134 yards, and terminates the lower part nearly of the bottom before mentioned, there being a passage around the end of this abutment, between it and the river, of about 20 yards. Here the river again assumes its usual width, soon spreading to near 300 yards but still continuing its rapidity. From the reflection of the sun on the spray or mist which arises from these Falls, there is a beautiful rainbow produced which adds not a little to the beauty of this majestically grand scenery.
After writing this imperfect description, I again viewed the Falls, and was so much disgusted with the imperfect idea which it conveyed of the scene, that I determined to draw my pen across it and begin again; but then reflected that I could not perhaps succeed better than penning the first impressions of the mind. I wished for the pencil of Salvator Rosa, a Titian, or the pen of Thomson, that I might be enabled to give to the enlightened world some just idea of this truly magnificent and sublimely grand object which has, from the commencement of time, been concealed from the view of civilized man. But this was fruitless and vain. I most sincerely regretted that I had not brought a camera obscure with me, by the assistance of which even I could have hoped to have done better, but alas, this was also out of my reach.
I therefore, with the assistance of my pen only, endeavored to trace some of the stronger features of this scene by the assistance of which, and my recollection aided by some able pencil, I hope still to give to the world some faint idea of an object which at this moment fills me with such pleasure and astonishment; and which of its kind, I will venture to assert, is second to but one in the known world.
I retired to the shade of a tree, where I determined to fix my camp for the present, and dispatch a man in the morning to inform Captain Clark and the party of my success in finding the Falls, and settle in their minds all further doubts as to the Missouri. The hunters now arrived, loaded with excellent buffalo meat, and informed me that they had killed three very fat cows about 3/4 of a mile from hence. I directed them, after they had refreshed themselves, to go back and butcher them and bring another load of meat each to our camp, determining to employ those who remained with me in drying meat for the party against their arrival. In about two hours, or at 4 o'clock P.M., they set out on this duty, and I walked down the river about three miles to discover, if possible, some place to which the canoes might arrive, or at which they might be drawn on shore in order to be taken by land above the falls, but returned without effecting either of these objectives.
The river was one continued scene of rapids and cascades, which I readily perceived could not be encountered with our canoes, and the cliffs still retained their perpendicular structure, and were from 150 to 200 feet high. In short, the river appears here to have worn a channel in the process of time through a solid rock.
On my return, I found the party at camp. They had butchered the buffalo and brought in some more meat, as I had directed. Goodrich had caught half a dozen very fine trout and a number of both species of the white fish. These trout (caught in the Falls) are from sixteen to twenty-three inches in length, precisely resemble our mountain or speckled trout in form and the position of their fins, but the specks on these are of a deep black instead of the red or gold color of those common to the U. States. These are furnished long sharp teeth on the palate and tongue, and have generally a small dash of red on each side behind the front ventral fins. The flesh is of a pale yellowish red or, when in good order, of a rose red.
I am induced to believe that the brown, the white, and the grizzly bear of this country are the same species, only differing in color from age or more probably from the same natural cause that many other animals of the same family differ in color. One of those which we killed yesterday was of a cream-colored white, while the other in company with it was of the common bay or reddish brown, which seems to be the most usual color of them. The white one appeared from its talons and teeth to be the youngest; it was smaller than the other, and although a monstrous beast, we supposed that it had not yet attained its growth, and that it was a little upwards of two years old. The young cubs which we have killed have always been of a brownish-white, but none of them as white as that we killed yesterday. One other that we killed some time since had a white stripe or list of about eleven inches wide entirely around his body just behind the shoulders, and was much darker than these bear usually are.
My fare is really sumptuous this evening: Buffalo's humps, tongues, and marrowbones, fine trout, parched meal, pepper and salt, and a good appetite. The last is not considered the least of the luxuries.
Captain Lewis, 13 June 1805
Ch 12A Index Ch 13A