TOPOGRAPHY OF ROUTE FROM THE MISSISSIPPI TO THE COLUMBIA. 175 



river, crossing the Big Hole mountains ; thence about five days march, traversing the extreme 

 headwaters of Wisdom river and Jefferson fork, again crossing the main range to Fort Hall, 

 (about one hundred miles through the well known sand and sage desert of the Snake River valley.) 

 Returning, he crosses the basin again by a more easterly route, crossing the two streams mentioned 

 about a day s march above their junction, his route leading almost wholly through prairie valleys 

 of great beauty and reported fertility. Leaving the basin by a small branch of Wisdom river, 

 he crosses the Rocky mountains for the fourth time, and enters the greater mountain feature 

 already described by the South fork of Hell Gate river, on which he reports a more extensive 

 district of open country than any before observed, and a considerable hot spring. He calls this 

 broad valley the Deer Lodge prairie, which, from its great extent and reported advantages, will 

 probably, when better known, dispute the palm of superiority even with the famous valley of St. 

 Mary s. 



The Blackfoot fork, St. Mary s river, Lou Lou fork, and the western slope of the Bitter Root 

 mountains, with the Jefferson fork, Wisdom river, &c., were explored and described by Lewis and 

 Clark ; but those celebrated travellers having had no object beyond that of exploration simply, 

 and having left no topographical data beyond general description, the recent more systematic 

 explorations may be considered as essentially new, as they were absolutely necessary for any 

 practical purpose. 



The Great Plain of the Columbia, or Plateau of Spokane, as it has been called, is bounded on 

 the north by those rivers, on the west by the former, and on the south and east by the Blue and 

 Rocky mountains ; it is about two hundred by one hundred and fifty miles in its greatest length 

 and breadth, and presents such a curious variety of surface, that it has been alternately called 

 a barren sage plain, rocky plateau, sterile waste, and sandy desert. A great deal might be said 

 to show that it is either or all of these, but there can be no doubt that it possesses many points 

 of interest which time only will develop. It contains numerous lakes and rivers, the latter 

 flowing almost invariably in canons of proportionate dimensions, from the great fissure which 

 holds the Columbia to the little cracks in the surface peculiar to every streamlet. Large tracts 

 contain little else than huge masses of columnar basalt, projecting to different heights, from ten 

 to one hundred feet; extensive swales occur, covered with bunch-grass ; and sometimes we pass 

 through many miles of short rounded ridges and hillocks, arranged, as it were, in rows, and laid 

 towards the same cardinal point; while near Wallah-Wallah are large fields of artemisia in deep 

 sandy soil, the most unfavorable part of the whole route. As might be supposed, the best sections 

 of the Great Plain are found in the immediate vicinity of the mountains, where a deeper soil 

 accumulates from the wash of the hills ; but the extreme western portion, near the Columbia, 

 presents little else than a miserable desert of drifting sand, alternating with sage plains and 

 naked volcanic rocks. The examination of the Grand Coulee by Lieutenant Arnold shows 

 another instance of the little reliance to be placed in unauthorized reports ; instead of connecting 

 across the northwestern bend of the Columbia some seventy miles, and being, as might be 

 supposed, the old bed of that river, it extends but twenty-five miles, with the form of an 

 immense canon, and then is soon lost in the general level of the plateau. 



Not unfrequently on the rivers and streams the canon walls disappear in rounded slopes, which 

 open out into valleys and flats where moderate grazing is found, and sufficient of brush-wood and 

 dwarf cedar, poplar, &c., for fire- wood, while in very extensive sections the bunch-grass affords 

 pasturage that might be called abundant. The soil, which is mostly decomposed trap-rock, of 

 various depths, but generally thin, cannot be denied to possess properties of productiveness ; 

 and on the swales it is vegetable mould, which only requires cultivation to prove its capability, 

 while the rivers and lakes abound in fish, but the hungry wolf is the only tenant of the plain. 



The region, altogether, however, is not very attractive in any respect, and can only be looked 

 upon as a new field of enterprise when the more favored wilderness shall have been subdued to 

 the ever-increasing requirements of civilization. 



