164 TOPOGRAPHY OF ROUTB FROM THE MISSISSIPPI TO THE COLUMBIA. 
approaching some magnificent city of the dead, where the labor and genius of forgotten nations 
had left behind them a multitude of monuments of art and skill. 
“On descending from the heights, however, and inspecting in detail its deep intricate recesses, 
the realities of the scene soon dissipate the illusions of the distance. The castellated forms which 
fancy had conjured up have vanished, and around one on every side is bleak and barren desola- 
tion. Then, too, if the exploration is made in midsummer, the scorching rays of the sun, pour- 
ing down in the hundred defiles that conduct the wayfarer through this pathless waste, are 
reflected back from the white or ash-colored walls that rise around, unmitigated by a breath of 
air or the shelter of a solitary shrub. 
“The drooping spirits of the scorched geologist are not, however, permitted to flag. The 
fossil treasures of the way well repay its dullness and fatigue.” 
The scientific explorer finds inexhaustible sources of interesting speculation, even in the midst 
of these desolate wastes. But the curiosity of the mere tourist is soon sated in such arid and 
gloomy wilds; he hastens to find again some grassy oasis and umbrageous shade, and remembers 
the Mauvaises Terres as a very skeleton of nature, or the wreck of an embryonic world. 
The character of the Missouri, and its facilities for navigation, will be fully developed, from the 
States to the Falls, by the surveys of Lieutenants Donelson and Grover. 
The streams flowing into the Missouri between Fort Union and Milk river are Little Muddy 
river, a small stream with clay banks and clay and pebbly bottom, with underbrush in a few 
places; it has a few branches heading in marshes, and mostly dry in summer. Next, Big Muddy, 
or Martha’s river, a large sluggish stream in a soft clay bed, which keeps the water always 
discolored and thick; it flows in a deeper valley than the others, and is everywhere difficult to 
cross; it has no timber or underbrush except near the Missouri, and flows from side to side of its 
narrow valley, making a series of regular and similar figures. Next, Poplar river, a rapid stream 
over a sandy and pebbly bottom; it is pretty well fringed with poplar and cotton-wood, and 
has a similar regularly sinuous course. Next, Porcupine river, in a sandy bed, and not much 
water—scattered trees and underbrush near the Missouri. There are other smaller water-courses, 
dry in summer. 
All these streams head in the small lakes and marshes of the plateau, flowing nearly in right 
angles to the Missouri. They have no great length of course, or anything calling for particular 
notice, except that the deep valleys which they have scooped through the plateau oppose serious 
obstructions to a direct line of travel, and make it necessary, or at least advisable, to keep along 
the Missouri bottom. 
Milk river joins the Missouri one hundred and five miles due west of Fort Union. Its direction 
up stream is northwest for fifty-five miles, where it is joined by a considerable branch from the 
north, which, like the main river, is fringed with cotton-wood ; thence generally due west, for one 
hundred and twenty-five miles; and again northwest, from one hundred to one hundred and fifty 
miles, to its sources in the great prairies. It will be remembered that the distances stated would 
probably be trebled by the sinuosities of the river, and are even less than the straightest lines 
that could be drawn through the interval; the object being to present only a general view of the 
most important features. Milk river—so named from the extraordinary whiteness of its water, 
which is thick with chalky solution and fine sand—may be considered a miniature of the Mis- 
souri, resembling it in most particulars, and differing only in magnitude and one other point, 
namely, that through more than its upper half the river-bed is apparently dry, the water per- 
colating through the quicksands, which are of considerable depth, and occasionally forming deep 
pools where water can always be procured. The running stream is seen again in the little 
branches from the Three Buttes, and probably in other sources. A branch is supposed to head in 
a considerable salt lake, called Pakokee, between the Three Buttes and Cypress mountain; but 
this is not satisfactorily established. At the last turning point mentioned, it is joined by a small 
fork, coming from the southwest about thirty miles, and heading in coulées within thirty miles (in 
