326 FROM BITTER ROOT VALLEY TO FORT HALL. 



consisting of antelope, deer, beaver, &c. has been almost innumerable. The Flatheads, also, 

 \vho arrived from the hunt a few days before we left the Bitter Root valley, came in loaded with 

 meat and furs. This day has been from 12 m. cloudy, with every appearance of snow, the ther 

 mometer at 2 p. m. standing at 36. After crossing the Big Hole mountain we fell upon a 

 branch of the Wisdom river, which is a tributary to the Jefferson fork of the Missouri. This 

 branch flows through a well timbered valley about two miles in width, and occasionally forming 

 patches of prairie from six to twelve miles in length and three to four in width. It receives many 

 small tributaries running from the mountain ridges on each side in every possible direction. We 

 followed along the main branch of this mountain stream for a distance of seventeen miles, camp 

 ing on its left bank or a slope of the mountain, which we found clear of snow. From our camp 

 of this night we had a fine view over a large and beautiful prairie, called the Big Hole prairie. 

 Bounding this prairie on the east, and at a distance of twenty miles, lay a high ridge of snow- 

 clad mountains, from which flow in every direction small tributaries to the Jeff -rson fork of the 

 Missouri. The mountains on the south and west are a range of the Salmon River mountains, 

 separating the waters of Salmon river from those of the Missouri. In this prairie are often seen 

 large bands of buffalo and moose; deer and antelope, also, occur in great abundance. The night 

 of this day was clear and cool, the thermometer at 9 p. m. being at 30. 



December 5, 1853. Commences cool, with snow, the thermometer at sunrise being 30. The 

 wind during the night was quite heavy, blowing from the south-southwest; towards 8 a. m., 

 however, it became pleasant, when we resumed our march, which lay across the large prairie 

 referred to yesterday. On the western portion of this prairie we found the snow six inches deep, 

 while no snow was seen on the eastern portion. We crossed several prairie streamlets during 

 the day which flow into the Wisdom river, all of which were frozen over sufficiently hard to bear 

 our animals. This prairie is about fifteen miles wide and fifty long, being hemmed in on all sides 

 by mountains except towards the southeast, where is a gap, through which issues the Wisdom 

 river. After crossing this prairie, at which time our course was 15 south of east, our trail 

 tended along the base of the range of mountains bounding it on the east; our course then becoming 

 east of south. This we followed for a distance of fifteen miles farther, over a very excellent 

 prairie road. Here it struck a small stream from the mountains, where we camped, finding good 

 grass and water for our animals; our fuel consisting of small dried willows, which were the 

 remnants of an old Nez Perces camp. We passed on the road of this day a large rock, (of con 

 glomerate,) which projected from a large bed that formed the western slope of the range bound 

 ing the prairie on the east. This conglomerate of rounded gravel-stones and broken fragments of 

 rocks, cemented together by a silicious cement formed quite a hard rock. We broke from it a 

 specimen, which is labelled No. 13. This same rock we found in very large quantities along the 

 Jefferson fork of the Missouri, being traced for a distance of fifty miles up the main stream and its 

 principal tributaries, where, however, the formation is more water-worn, and occurs in very large 

 beds, forming in some places bluffs one hundred feet high. The formation in the Big Hole prairie 

 is the farthest west that we have as yet seen it. On the stream where lay our camp of this night 

 we found a range of hot springs, where the water bubbles from the ground, issuing from riearly 

 one hundred springs. The stones around these springs we found to be encrusted with a thick 

 coating of lime, and the bed of the stream from which flows the water of these many springs to 

 be covered with a thick, green, slimy coating. The temperature of the water was 132 ; its taste is 

 riot at all unpleasant, being that of pure warm water. The grass along the border of the stream 

 is dry and parched. These springs are so numerous, and flow so freely, that the water from 

 them forms a large stream, and the vapor arising from it looks, at a distance, like the smoke from 

 a fire on the prairies. There is another range of these hot springs in a prairie north of this, known 

 as &quot;Deer Lodge,&quot; which will be referred to hereafter, as it will be on our return-route. In the 

 range of mountains bounding the prairie of Big Hole, and nearly due east from our camp of 

 last night, and about twenty miles distant, is a large mountain lake, six miles in length and four 



