University of Virginia Library

Thursday June 13th. 1805.

This morning we set out about sunrise after taking breakfast
off our venison and fish. we again ascended the hills of
the river and gained the level country. the country through
which we passed for the first six miles tho' more roling than
that we had passed yesterday might still with propryety be
deemed a level country; our course as yesterday was generally
S.W. the river from the place we left it appeared to make a
considerable bend to the South. from the extremity of this
roling country I overlooked a most beatifull and level plain
of great extent or at least 50 or sixty miles; in this there were
infinitely more buffaloe than I had ever before witnessed at a
view. nearly in the direction I had been travling or S.W.
two curious mountains presented themselves of square figures,
the sides rising perpendicularly to the hight of 250 feet and
appeared to be formed of yellow clay; their tops appeared to
be level plains; these inaccessible hights appeared like the
remparts of immence fortifications; I have no doubt but with
very little assistance from art they might be rendered impregnable.[8]
fearing that the river boar to the South and that I
might pass the falls if they existed between this an[d] the
snowey mountains I altered my course nea[r]ly to the South
leaving those insulated hills to my wright and proceeded
through the plain; I sent Feels on my right and Drewyer
and Gibson on my left with orders to kill some meat and join
me at the river where I should halt for dinner. I had proceded
on this course about two miles with Goodrich at some
distance behind me whin my ears saluted with the agreeable
sound of fall of water and advancing a little further I
saw the spray arrise above the plain like a collumn of smoke
which would frequently dispear again in an instant caused I
presume by the wind which blew pretty hard from the S.W.
I did not however loose my direction to this point which soon
began to make a roaring too tremendious to be mistaken for
any cause short of the great falls of the Missouri. here I
arrived about 12 OClock having traveled by estimate about
15. Miles. I hurryed down the hill which was about 200

feet high and difficult of access, to gaze on this sublimely
grand specticle. I took my position on the top of some rocks
about 20 feet high opposite the center of the falls. this chain
of rocks appear once to have formed a part of those over which
the waters tumbled, but in the course of time has been seperated
from it to the distance of 150 yards lying prarrallel to it
and a butment against which the water after falling over the
precipice beats with great fury; this barrier extends on the
right to the perpendicular clift which forms that board [border]
of the river, but to the distance of 120 yards next to the clift
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 yds. next to the higher part of the ledg of rocks; on the
left it extends within 80 or ninty yards of the lard. Clift 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 yds. wide; about ninty or a
hundred yards of this next the Lard. bluff is a smoth even sheet
of water falling over a precipice of at least eighty feet, the
remaining part of about 200 yards on my right formes the
grandest sight I ever beheld, the hight of the fall is the same
of the other but the irregular and somewhat projecting rocks
below receives the water in it's passage down and brakes it
into a perfect white foam which assumes a thousand forms in
a moment sometimes flying up in jets of sparkling foam to the
hight of fifteen or twenty feet and are scarcely formed before
large roling bodies of the same beaten and foaming water is
thrown over and conceals them. In short the rocks seem to
be most happily fixed to present a sheet of the whitest beaten
froath for 200 yards in length and about 80 feet perpendicular.
the water after decending strikes against the butment before
mentioned or that on which I stand and seems to reverberate
and being met by the more impetuous courant they roll and
swell into half formed billows of great hight which rise and
again disappear in an instant. this butment of rock defends
a handsome little bottom of about three acres which is deversified
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
downwards with the stream for about 20 yards. about a mile
before the water arrives at the pitch it decends very rappidly,
and is confined on the Lard. side by a perpendicular clift of
about 100 feet, on Stard. 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 buffaloe
have a large beaten road to the water, (Qu.) for it is but in very
few places that these anamals can obtain water near this place
owing to the steep and inaccessible banks. I see several
skelletons of the buffaloe lying in the edge of the water near
the Stard. bluff which I presume have been swept down by the
current and precipitated over this tremendious fall. about 300
yards below me there is another butment of solid rock with a
perpendicular face and abo[u]t 60 feet high which projects
from the Stard. side at right angles to the distance of 134 yds.
and terminates the lower part nearly of the bottom before mentioned;
there being a passage arround the end of this butment
between it and the river of about 20 yards; here the river
again assumes it's usual width soon spreading to near 300
yards but still continues it's rappidity. from the reflection of
the sun on the sprey or mist which arrises from these falls
there is a beatifull rainbow produced which adds not a little to
the beauty of this majestically grand senery. after wrighting
this imperfect discription 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
agin, but then reflected that I could not perhaps succeed better
than pening the first impressions of the mind; I wished for
the pencil of Salvator Rosa [a Titian] or the pen of Thompson,[9]
that I might be enabled to give to the enlightened world
some just idea of this truly magnifficent 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 regreted that I had not brought a
crimee [camera] obscura 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 indeavoured to trace some of the stronger features of
this seen 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 it's kind I will venture to
ascert 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 Capt. C.
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 buffaloe 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 2 hours or at 4 OClock 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 objects; the river was one continued sene
of rappids and cascades which I readily perceived could not be
encountered with our canoes, and the Clifts still retained their
perpendicular structure and were from 150 to 200 feet high;
in short the river appears here to have woarn a channel in the
process of time through a solid rock. on my return I found
the party at camp; they had butchered the buffaloe and
brought in some more meat as I had directed. Goodrich had
caught half a douzen 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 goald colour of those common to the U'. States.
these are furnished long sharp teeth on the pallet 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.[10]

I am induced to believe that the Brown, the white and the
Grizly bear of this country are the same species only differing
in colour from age or more probably from the same natural
cause that many other anamals of the same family differ in
colour. one of those which we killed yesterday was of a creem-coloured
white while the other in company with it was of the
common bey or r[e]dish brown, which seems to be the most
usual colour of them. the white one appeared from it's tallons
and teath to be the youngest; it was smaller than the other,
and although a monstrous beast we supposed that it had not
yet attained it's 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 sometime since
which I mentioned sunk under some driftwood and was lost,
had a white stripe or list of about eleven inches wide entirely
arround his body just behind the shoalders, and was much
darker than these bear usually are. the grizly bear we have
never yet seen. I have seen their tallons in possession of the
Indians and from their form I am preswaded if there is any
difference between this species and the brown or white bear it
is very inconsiderable. There is no such anamal as a black
bear in this open country or of that species generally denominated
the black bear

My fare is really sumptuous this evening; buffaloe'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.