76 



by tlie 1st of December. The rainy season of the spring and summer 

 commences in different years between the 15th of May and the 30th 

 of June (in the latitude of Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and southern Ne- 

 braska) and lasts about two months. During this period the tribu- 

 taries of the Missouri in these latitudes maintain this river in good 

 boating stage. The floods produced by the melting snows in the 

 mountains come from the Platte, the Big Shyenne, the Yellowstone, 

 and the Missouri above the Yellowstone, and reach the lower river 

 about the first part of July, and it is mainly to these that the navi- 

 gator of the Missouri above the Niobrara depends. The length of 

 time the flood lasts is in proportion to the quantity of snow in the 

 mountains, which varies greatly in different years. On the average 

 it may be said to last a month, but a steamer starting from St. Louis 

 on the first indication there of such rise would not generally reach the 

 Yellowstone before it was nearly past this latter point. Rivers like 

 this, whose navigation depends upon the temporary floods, are greatly 

 inferior for ascending than descending boats. The rise at the Yellow- 

 stone would be about ten days reaching St. Louis, and any good sys- 

 tem of telegraphing along the stream, which would apprise those 

 below, would more than double the advantages to the upward navi- 

 gation. If a miscalculation is made by taking a temporary rise for 

 the main one, the boat has to lay by in the middle part of the river 

 till the main rise comes. From this cause I, starting on the 16th of 

 April, was thirty-seven days in getting to Fort Pierre, 1,250 miles 

 from St. Louis. Again, if the boat starts too late the main rise may 

 all pass the upper river before she reaches it, and her progress will 

 then be slow and tedious. By starting June 6, 1855, (which was too 

 late, it being an early season,) we were forty-one days going to Fort 

 Pierre. 



The American Fur Company's boats are of the largest class of freight 

 boats now navigating the Missouri. They are ably managed, and 

 the company possesses information by expresses sent from its trading 

 posts near the mountains as to the amount of snow that has fallen 

 and the probable extent and time of the rise produced by its melting. 

 The boats are loaded and time of starting fixed accordingly. Their 

 boats carry from one hundred and fifty to two hundred tons to the 

 Yellowstone, a distance of 1,900 miles, drawing from three to three 

 and a half feet of water, and make the passage up in from twenty-two 

 to thirty-five days, Considerable freight is taken out for the post of 

 Fort Union, and they generally ascend wiih that for Fort Benton to 

 about sixty miles above the mouth of the Yellowstone, and have on 

 one occasion gone to Milk river, one hundred miles further. 



The quantity of water is, on the average, about equal from the 

 Yellowstone and Missouri at their junction, and above this point 

 steamboats venture with caution. The great risk in proceeding 

 further of having the boat caught in the upper river during the win- 

 ter more than counterbalances the prospective gain. The freight is 

 then taken on board of ]\Iackinac boats, and cordeled by hand, 

 aided generally by sails. These boats are from sixty to seventy feet 

 long, drawing fifteen to eighteen inches, (regulated somewhat by the 

 cordeling force,) though twenty to twenty-four inches draught could 



