Sunday July 28th. 1805.
MY friend Capt. Clark was very sick all last night but
feels himself somewhat better this morning since
his medicine has opperated. I dispatched two men
early this morning up the S.E. Fork to examine the river;
and permitted sundry others to hunt in the neighbourhood of
this place. Both Capt. C. and myself corrisponded in opinon
with rispect to the impropriety of calling either of these streams
the Missouri and accordingly agreed to name them after the
President of the United States and the Secretaries of the
Treasury and state having previously named one river in
honour of the Secretaries of War and Navy. In pursuance
of this resolution we called the S.W. fork, that which we
meant to ascend, Jefferson's River in honor of that illustrious
personage Thomas Jefferson. [the author of our enterprize.]
the Middle fork we called Madison's River in honor of James
Madison, and the S.E. Fork we called Gallitin's River in
honor of Albert Gallitin. the two first are 90 yards wide and
the last is 70 yards. all of them run with great volocity and
th[r]ow out large bodies of water. Gallitin's River is reather
more rapid than either of the others, is not quite as deep but
from all appearances may be navigated to a considerable distance.
Capt. C. who came down Madison's river yesterday
and has also seen Jefferson's some distance thinks Madison's
reather the most rapid, but it is not as much so by any means
as Gallitin's. the beds of all these streams are formed of
smooth pebble and gravel, and their waters perfectly transparent;
in short they are three noble streams. there is timber
enough here to support an establishment, provided it be erected
with brick or stone either of which would be much cheaper
than wood as all the materials for such a work are immediately
at the spot. there are several small sand-bars along the shores
at no great distance of very pure sand and the earth appears
as if it would make good brick. I had all our baggage spread
out to dry this morning; and the day proving warm, I had a
small bower or booth erected for the comfort of Cap
t. C. our
leather lodge when exposed to the sun is excessively hot. I
observe large quantities of the sand rush in these bottoms
which grow in many places as high as a man's breast and stand
as thick as the stalks of wheat usually do. this affords one
of the best winter pastures on earth for horses or cows, and
of course will be much in favour of an establishment should
it ever be thought necessary to fix one at this place. the grass
is also luxouriant and would afford a fine swarth of hay at this
time in parsels of ma[n]y acres together. all those who are
not hunting altho' much fatiegued are busily engaged in dressing
their skins, making mockersons lexing [leggings]&c to
make themselves comfortable. the Musquetoes are more than
usually troublesome, the knats are not as much so. in the
evening about 4 O'Ck the wind blew hard from South West
and after some little time brought on a Cloud attended with
thunder and Lightning from which we had a fine refreshing
shower which cooled the air considerably; the showers continued
with short intervals untill after dark. in the evening
the hunters all returned they had killed 8 deer and 2 Elk,
some of the deer wer[e] in excellent order. those whome I
had sent up Gallitin's river reported that after it passed the
point to which I had seen it yesterday that it turned more to
the East to a considerable distance or as far as they could discover
the opening of the Mountains formed by it's valley
which was many miles. the bottoms were tolerably wide but
not as much so as at or near it's mouth. it's current is rappid
and the stream much divided with islands but is sufficiently
deep for canoe navigation. Our present camp is precisely on
the spot that the Snake Indians were encamped at the time the
Minnetares of the Knife R. first came in sight of them five
years since. from hence they retreated about three miles up
Jeffersons river and concealed themselves in the woods, the
Minnetares pursued, attacked them, killed 4 men 4 women a
number of boys, and mad[e] prisoners of all the females and
four boys,
Sah-cah-gar-we-ah o[u]r Indian woman was one
of the female prisoners taken at that time; tho' I cannot discover
that she shews any immotion of sorrow in recollecting
this event, or of joy in being again restored to her native
country; if she has enough to eat and a few trinkets to wear
I beleive she would be perfectly content anywhere.
Point of observation No. 39.
At our encampment on Camp Island, near the junction of the three
forks of the Missouri.
Observed Equal Altitudes of ☉ with Sextant.
|
h m s |
|
h m s |
|
| A.M. |
8. 42. 10. |
P.M. |
4. 21. 46. accurate. |
Altd. at the
time of Observtns. |
|
". 43. 42 |
|
". 23. 21. doubtfull. |
° ′ ″ |
|
". 45. 15 |
|
". lost by Clouds |
72. 8. 15. |
| Observed Meridian Altitude of ☉'s. L. L. with |
° ′ ″ |
| Octant by the back observation |
58. 35.—. |
| Latitude deduced from this observation. |
45°. 24′. 54.″ |
