274 FROM BLACKFOOT TRAIL TO CLARIS FORK. 



here attains, has an elevation of about 4,500 feet, and, as near as I can judge at this time without 

 my notes, about fifteen miles distant from the pass. The entrance has an elevation of about 

 5,000 feet, leaving to be gained of ascent only five hundred feet ; so that, were it possible to 

 unite the pass with this plain by a continuous grade, the approach would be remarkably easy. 

 Between us, however, and the pass, flow the tributaries of Beaver creek, cutting the ground in 

 deep ravines, and preventing a regular gradation for the interval remaining to the pass. The best 

 approach which, with my present knowledge, I feel justified in declaring practicable, is with about 

 eight miles of sixty feet grade, tunnelling the summit in the ravine to the right and to the north of 

 the trail, thus shortening the tunnelling distance, and perforating the mountain at about the eleva 

 tion of 5,000 feet, and with a length which I estimate at four and one-quarter miles. In making 

 the eastern approach, the line must not drop down into the valley of Dearborn river. The west 

 ern descent, with a tunnel of four and one-quarter miles, can probably be accomplished with a 

 forty- foot grade. I ought to have spent more time on this summit, but having been separated 

 from my party, and being without food, and supposing that your careful examination would render 

 it unnecessary, I hastened down the valley to overtake the parties ahead, joining you the next 

 day, after making the passage of the summit Saturday, September 24. I may state here that an 

 observation made by Wilson while on the summit, gives as its height 5,537 feet a result much 

 lower than that given by the barometer at the time of your passage of the divide. It is not 

 unlikely that the true height is between these two results. 



On Monday, the 26th of September, I again left you, with instruction to take a trail connecting 

 the valley of Black foot and Jocko rivers, and note its practicability as a railway route. The 

 information which had been obtained from the guide Antoine was, that there was a good trail 

 connecting these valleys, and that there was no connecting trail leading to any other locality. I 

 found no trail until early on the day after leaving you. My barometer, from leakage, became 

 useless that same night; and from having been led astray by the trail which I followed, and 

 having now before me no record of my notes, I feel able to give little reliable information as to this 

 region. My trail, however, finally led me into a fine, wide valley, walled in on either side by 

 high mountains of singular boldness and beauty, which I descended, until soon I got so far into 

 the valley that there was no getting out of it, and my only chance was to go ahead, which I did 

 for several days, the valley continuing to retain its wide and favorable character, until, by the 

 guidance of some Kootenaies Indians whom I fell in with, I was led to a trail which forked from 

 the valley trail, and passed over the mountains to the left or the southwest side. My animals 

 had become very tired from working through fallen timber, missing the trail, &c., and more 

 especially as the valley was wooded and furnished a scanty supply of grass; and before attempt 

 ing the mountain trail I halted for a day of rest, on Sunday, the second day of October. The 

 mountain trail consumed a day and a half or near two days before I struck into the plains on the 

 southwest side a wide, open prairie valley, in which is a small trading-house of the Hudson s 

 Bay Company, and which valley is very near to, or is connected with, Clark s fork. Jocko river 

 is separated from the valley by only a small ridge ; and on the fifth of October, at night, I 

 encamped in the immediate vicinity of your last camp on the same river a few days after. The 

 valley, which I followed for several days between the mountain ridges, appeared to reach into 

 Flathead lake. It is wooded, and has growing in it a great deal of straight and valuable pine 

 timber ; has a great deal of gravel plain ; and were it not that I conceive it to be too much out of 

 the way, running too far north, it would make an admirable link in our railway line; its magnetic 

 course is about north 45 west. Between this and the Jocko river there is another river, and the 

 view of its valley which we had from near the small trading-post of the Hudson s Bay Company 

 is very prepossessing. It is open and grassed; wide, with a gradual rise. 



The summit of the stream which I followed into the mountains is also the summit of another 



stre- , which is probably the one that came out at the trading-post, or else may be the Jocko 



If it should prove to be the former, it is probable that there is a highly favorable line of 



