330 FROM BITTER ROOT VALLEY TO FORT HALL. 



very much contorted. About two miles higher up the gorge this formation again occurs, but the 

 strata are more horizontal, still dipping, however, to the west. This rock is easily wrought 

 upon by the weather, as in very many places along the gorge we found that it had become very 

 much disintegrated. The soil of the whole of the upper portion of the valley is formed of the 

 washings from this rock. Having travelled a distance of twenty-eight miles, we encamped at 

 the foot of the Snake river divide, where we found good grass and wood. The divide being cov 

 ered with snow, and the wind blowing from it through the canon with great force, we found the 

 night very uncomfortable. It was with great difficulty our tent withstood the cold and severe 

 gale. The ground being frozen, our tent-pins had but little hold. On account of the high wind 

 of this night, our food was well seasoned with ashes and cinders. 



The wind has been blowing strong and steady from the south-southwest since morning, and at 

 night much stronger and colder than at any other time. The night was clear and cool, the ther 

 mometer at 9 p. in. being 30 ; at sunset 33. 



December 9, 1S53. Commences cold and windy. The wind, which during the last night blew 

 with great force from the south-southwest, at sunrise this morning had not abated in the least, the 

 thermometer being 33. After travelling about a quarter of a mile along the foot of the mount 

 ains separating the waters of Snake river from those of the Missouri, we found the ascent quite 

 steep and covered with snow twelve inches deep. It was with difficulty that our animals made 

 their way through the snow, in some places it having drifted to the depth of three feet. No one 

 had passed over this road recently, so we found no trail or beaten road. We found the weather 

 exceedingly cold on gaining the top of these mounlains. The wind blowing exceedingly strong, 

 was directly in our faces, and it, with the drifting of the snow, made travelling very uncomforta 

 ble. There was no one in the party whose limbs were not thoroughly benumbed on arriving at 

 the summit of the divide, and each one s face was blue with cold. On gaining the summit, to 

 our right and left were to be seen immense beds of high snow-clad ridges, from the tops of some 

 of which the snow is never absent. Towards the Snake river we could see far in the distance 

 the bed of a lake, which our guide told us was a lake formed by the Medicine Lodge creek; in 

 the distance beyond the lake lay a high range of mountains to the south of Snake river. Tins 

 mountain, or divide, is much more steep in descending than in ascending. We were compelled 

 to dismount and take the snow on foot. On gaining its base, our course for several miles lay 

 through a winding gorge of the mountains. After travelling down it five or six miles, we fell upon 

 a spring gushing from the side of the mountains, where is the source of the &quot;Medicine Lodge 

 creek,&quot; a name given it by the Blackfeet Indians some years ago, when buffalo were found in 

 great abundance west of the Rocky mountains. On a certain occasion, when hunting the buffido 

 in conjunction with being occupied in stealing horses from their neighbors the Flatheads, Snakes, 

 Banax, and others, the Blackfeet were encamped on this stream, where they built a lodge of trees 

 some sixty feet in height, the spot being selected somewhere near the lake formed by the river. 

 Here they were a long time in preparing and making medicines that should prove destructive to 

 all their enemies. From this fact they called it the Medicine Lodge creek. After striking this 

 creek, our road lay through its valley for several miles, which we found to be very tortuous. Its 

 general width was from a mile to a mile and a half; for a distance of fifteen miles it forms a 

 very pretty prairie valley. The stream is unwooded save by the willow, which grows from ten 

 to twelve feet high. The artemisia or wild sage, however, is found in great abundance. The 

 soil of this valley we found to be principally gravel, and apparently unsuited to the growth of 

 anything save the wild sage, found in abundance through its whole length. It is bordered on 

 each side by walls of an exceedingly hard white rock, unstratified, the whole forming a bed 1,000 

 feet thick. A few miles farther, the geological character of the gorge or canon entirely changes. 

 This white-colored rock is replaced by a black or dark-colored volcanic rock, from which we 

 secured two very interesting specimens presenting a honey-cornb surface, and the whole giving 

 undoubted evidence of the action of fire. Near where these were collected we found a second 



