MISSOURI RIVER FROM GREAT FALLS TO MOUTH OF MILK RIVER. A497 
It would then seem that, up to the Ist of August, there is water enough for navigation by boats 
of three-feet draught loaded; and up to the 1st of September, for boats of two-feet draught; and 
later than the 20th of September, for boats not exceeding eighteen inches in draught. 
The velocity of the current upon the swiftest rapids was little less than five miles per hour. 
When the water is a little higher, however, the rapids are all lost sight of, and the current is 
nearly uniform, but rapid. What might be found to form a serious obstruction, as the water gets 
low, are large rolling stones sometimes left on shallow places; but as they rarely, if ever, weigh 
over a ton, they could easily be removed by grappling-hooks made for the purpose, with which a 
boat might rapidly hitch on to them and drop down to deeper water. 
The boat required for low-water navigation should combine the following important points, 
viz: very light draught, and great power in comparison to it; great facility in making short turns, 
and ability to stem a current exceeding five miles per hour. 
Soon after returning to Fort Benton, we visited the falls of Missouri, which lie in nearly a 
southwestern direction, about seventy-five miles by land from the fort. There are five principal 
cascades. The first, about three miles below the mouth of the Sun river, falls about twenty-five 
feet. The second, nearly three miles below the first, is a small crooked cascade of five feet 
eleven inches pitch. Immediately below is the third. Here, between high banks, a ledge, 
nearly as straight as if formed by art, runs obliquely across the river, over which the waters fall 
forty-two feet in one continuous sheet of four hundred and seventy yards in width. At the foot 
of this cascade, so beautiful for its length and regularity, is a small island, covered with willow, 
cotton-wood, and wild cherry. Half a mile below this again is the fourth—a small irregular fall 
of about twelve feet descent. There is a small knot of an island near the middle, and between 
that and the right bank of the river the ledge of the fall is very crooked, and the water reaches 
the basin below in two pitches. But between the island and the left bank, there is simply a suc- 
cession of rapids; the stream then hurries on, lashed and churned by numerous rapids, about 
five miles farther, where it precipitates itself over a precipice of seventy-six feet in height. This 
is the fifth and ‘Great Fall” of the Missouri. The banks are high and abrupt on both sides, 
and above and below, deep ravines, with bare, steep sides, extend out into the prairie from one 
to two miles. But opposite the fall, on the north side, a narrow tongue of waving prairie runs 
near to the river, and breaks off in terraces to a small bottom below the cascade. The lower 
plain, embracing two or three acres, is a rounded point of land, which, with a rock-bound 
shoulder, half encircles the basin of the cascade, and for a short distance below confines the 
water-course to half its usual width. Near its head, a broken and disconnected ledge of rocks 
rises some thirty feet or more above the water; but lower down there is some soil, and a few 
scattered cotton-wood, willow, and cherry trees. 
Below the falls there is a continuation of rapids, which become less and less frequent to the 
mouth of the ‘Highwood creek.” Steep banks, about two hundred feet high, crowd closely 
upon the river, and on the north side are so cut up by precipitous ravines that it is almost impos- 
sible to keep near the water-course. From a few miles above “ Highwood creek,” however, to 
Fort Benton, the river-bends are longer, and the receding bluffs often have small intervals be- 
tween them and the stream. These generally occur on the concave side of a bend. A quite 
extensive bottom of this kind is divided by the “ Highwood creek.” Should it ever be found 
necessary to establish a military post in this vicinity, this position would combine many advan- 
tages of location. The soil is good and grass is plentiful, both on the bottoms and on the adja- 
cent high prairies. The banks of the creek near the river are well supplied with cotton-wood 
for fuel, while several miles higher up in the Highwood mountains, pine timber, for building pur- 
poses, is of easy access, and can be floated down the stream. ‘This is where the fur traders get 
their building pine. 
Below the mouth of the Highwood there are no rapids of any consequence to Fort Benton, and 
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