FROM FORT HALL TO HEAD OF HELL GATE RIVER. 343 



miles from our camp of last, night, we crossed and found frozen to the bottom. This creek is so 

 called by the Indians, who, some years ago, caught fish from its waters by spearing them. Jour 

 neying a short distance from this creek, and crossing a series of low sand ridges, we reached a 

 long, level, and beautiful prairie called the &quot;Deer Lodge,&quot; a name given it from the great 

 number of deer found in and near its vicinity. This place is a great resort for the Indians west 

 of the mountains at all seasons, and especially when returning from the buffalo hunt, where they 

 remain several weeks recruiting their animals, finding the greatest abundance of rich and luxu 

 riant grass. Through it flow two large streams one of which is the main stream of the Hell 

 Gate fork of the Bitter Root river and a great number of prairie streamlets; thus rendering it an 

 excellent recruiting rendezvous for the Indians with their large bands ol horses. It is about fifty 

 miles long north and south, and from twelve to fifteen wide, bounded on all sides save on the east 

 by high pine-clad mountains, the summits of which alone are found covered with snow. A very 

 slight fall of snow covered the valley. It is noted for the very small quantity of snow found on 

 it during the severest winters known in the mountains, which gives it the principal advantage for 

 wintering over the many prairie valleys of the mountains. Its many streams are all lined with 

 timber, consisting of the cotton-wood, birch, willow, and the black-haw. Finding our animals 

 very much jaded by their long march, we concluded to remain here a day to rest and recruit 

 them, where they found an abundance of excellent grass. We saw, when entering this valley, 

 large bands of antelope feeding. These, with a few mountain sheep and goats, seen on the 

 highest peaks of the mountains, constituted the game of the day. We did not exert ourselves 

 to secure any, since we had a great quantity of elk meat with us. The weather to-day has been 

 exceedingly mild and summer-like, at noon being very warm. Travelling a distance of eighteen 

 and a half miles, by a very excellent road, we encamped on the Deer Lodge creek, where 

 we found good grass, wood, and water. We crossed, about two miles before reaching the Deer 

 Lodge creek, another of the same size, called the Rock Bank creek, a name given it from the 

 fact of its passing through a rocky canon near its head. This last-mentioned creek, together 

 with a small stream called the Yellow Bank, rises in the mountains bounding Deer Lodge on the 

 south from the main stream of the Hell Gate fork of the Bitter Root river. The Deer Lodge 

 creek, which is one of its largest tributaries, near its head is fifteen yards wide, with a rapid 

 current, channel-water eighteen inches deep, and lined near its head with the cotton-wood, but 

 lower down with the willow, birch, alder, and black-haw. The mouth of the Deer Lodge creek 

 was about two miles below our camp of the night. There is a second, and one of the largest 

 tributaries, comes in from the east, and empties into the main stream ten miles below the mouth 

 of the Deer Lodge creek. By following up this tributary to its head, you cross, by a very excel 

 lent road, a dividing ridge, and fall upon the main stream of the Jefferson fork of the Missouri, 

 which road is often followed by the Indians to the hunt, thence by the three forks of the Mis 

 souri. About four hundred yards from our camp of this night occurs one of the most singular 

 and interesting formations met with on our whole route. It is a conical mound, about thirty 

 feet high, with an oval top, around whose base, from east by south to west, occur innu 

 merable hot or boiling springs. On the top of this mound is a spring of three feet in diameter, 

 down which was thrust a pole twenty feet long and no bottom found. The water boils up from 

 this spring, but does not run off. 



The mound is composed of a hard ligniform product, occurring in concentric layers, from one 

 to four inches in thickness. I cannot call it a rock, though it is as hard in most places as rock. 

 On its southern slope occurs an irregular mass of black scoriated rock, that looks not unlike 

 coke, and when broken presents the appearance of, and when lifted gives evidence of, the 

 pressure of iron. It shows that it has undergone great change by the action of intense heat. 

 The surface on the southern slope is incrusted with a white salt about one-sixteenth of an inch 

 thick. Breaking from this mass of scoriated rock a small fragment, I accidentally exposed a 

 bed of this white salt, which apparently extended far into the interior of the mound. It is 



