66 
from east to west, the source of one of the little water-courses, 
here dry, is reached, and a slight elevation, two or three hun- 
dred yards distant, seems merely to hide from view another 
portion of the same uniform landscape. But a few steps 
more, and the ground opens before our very feet, and we 
stand on the brink of a valley-gorge, 10 to 15 miles in width, 
almost the entire space of which is covered with innumerable 
hills and hillocks, from the size of a baker’s oven to that of 
a mountain, the smaller of these being generally of the shape 
of a Beehive, Mushroom or “ Glacier-table,” the largest of 
similar form, but with flat tops, the levels of which corre- 
spond to the levels of the plain, in which the valley has been 
ploughed by the waters of the Little Missouri des Gros 
Ventres. The number of the hills filling the bottom of the 
valley is immense. Standing on the brink of the gorge, the 
eye takes in, in all probability, more than a thousand at one 
glance, on a section perhaps 30 miles in length and 15 miles 
in width. The general configuration of the surface, is how- 
ever unlike that of a rocky mountainous country ; the hills 
and hillocks form no, or only indistinct chains, but stand 
more or less isolated. Some of the valleys or gorges are so 
narrow, that wagons get jammed between the two sides, some 
of them even end in sacs. Others, that connect with the 
main valley of the Little Missouri, show a water-course, but 
no running water, only here and there a puddle of the ap- 
pearance of strong coffee. The main valley of the Little 
Missouri, is, at the point, where it was crossed by the Expedi- 
tion, about half a mile in width. The elevation attained 
after crossing, say 800 miles of inclined plain, from the 
Missouri to the eastern brink of the valley-gorge, appears to 
be from 1500 to 2000 feet, the descent from this brink to the 
banks of the Little Missouri, leads in 6 to 7 miles to a level 
800 to 1000 feet lower than the surrounding plain. The 
elevation of the plateau between the western brink of the 
valley gorge, and the valley of the Yellowstone, appears to 
be a trifle higher than that to the east of this Gap. 
The inclined plain between the Missouri River and the 
Little Missouri, is covered for the greater part by Drift, the 
