NAVIGABILITY OF THE MISSOURI. 249 
P. S.—On the lower portion of the river, as above referred to, there are many quite extensive 
bottoms well adapted to agricultural purposes. There is a good deal of arable land, also, in the 
vicinity of Fort Benton and in the Sun River valley. A more extensive note will be made upon 
this, under the head of Topography, in my final report. 
CG: 
16. REPoRT OF LIEUTENANT R. SAXTON, U. S. A.. OF HIS TRIP IN A KEEL-BOAT FROM FORT 
BENTON TO FORT LEAVENWORTH, AND OF THE NAVIGABILITY OF THE MISSOURI RIVER BY 
STEAMERS. 
Wasuineton, D.C., June 8, 1854. 
Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report of my journey down the Missouri. I left 
Fort Benton on the 22d of September, 1853, for St. Louis. My party consisted of Mr. Culbert- 
son, Indian agent among the Blackfeet; Mr. Graham; Mr. Hoyt; Sergeant Collins, of the sapper 
and miner company; a detachment of seventeen dragoons from company I, 1st dragoons, and 
six quartermaster’s employés. 
I was charged with the duty of returning the soldiers and employés of the Quartermaster’s 
department to St. Louis, and gathering such general facts as I could with regard to the capability 
of these upper waters of the great Missouri for steamboat navigation. 
I started at the driest season of the year, when the Missouri was uncommonly low, and had, 
therefore, an opportunity of observing the river in its most unfavorable state. During a great 
portion of the year, the rains and melting snow in the mountains swell the volume of water to 
many times its size at the low stages, making the passage of boats much easier. 
I embarked upon a keel-boat obtained from the American Fur Company, and built by them of 
timber brought from the Rocky mountains. It was eighty feet long by fourteen wide, had twelve 
oars, and drew, when loaded, eighteen inches of water. We called it the “ Blackfoot,” from the 
fact of its being probably the first boat ever constructed in that wild region. The fact that a 
journey of more than 2,000 miles was made in so unwieldy a craft, indifferently manned, after 
the 18th of September, is in itself an evidence in favor of the supposition that steamboats can 
operate with advantage. 
For the first two days of my journey the water of the river was comparatively clear, with a 
gravel bottom; the channel crooked, the current varying in swiftness between one-half and four 
miles per hour. In no case did I find less than fifteen inches of water upon the bars, and so 
shallow a run as this in but one or two localities. 
Owing to the peculiar nature of the bottom—it being a mixture in many places of quicksand 
and fine gravel—it would give way very readily to the action of the paddle-wheels, and admit of 
the passage of a boat drawing a greater amount of water than is actually found upon the bars. 
The regimen of the river above the mouth of Muscle Shell is fixed. The banks change very 
little, and there is very little timber. Should steamers run here eventually, there will be a 
scarcity of fuel; enough, however, can be collected for present purposes. 
The “Mauvaises Terres” lie directly above the Muscle Shell; through these the channel is 
very good. The worst bar in the river is above the Bad Lands, a few miles below Fort Benton, 
where there was but fifteen inches of water. 
From the Muscle Shell downward towards the mouth ‘of the Yellowstone the river changes. 
The water gradually becomes muddy from the washing away of the banks; the channel is con- 
stantly shifting its position; the forests of cotton-wood, with which the banks are lined, falling 
into the river, causes numerous snags and sawyers. Below the Yellowstone, the Missouri 
assumes the same character it maintains to its mouth. It becomes thick and muddy with the 
alluvial deposit it is ceaselessly bearing onward to the Gulf of Mexico. The bed of the river is 
32 f 
