164 TOPOGRAPHY OF ROUTE 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. 



&quot; 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. 



&quot; 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.&quot; 



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 Torres 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 coulees within thirty miles (in. 



