77 



be used. The time from Fort Union to Fort Benton varies from forty 

 to eighty days, depending on various causes, of which wind is the 

 most important. The river distance from Milk river to Fort Benton 

 is about five hundred miles. 



The interests of the general government would be much advanced 

 b}' making appropriations to remove the snags which obstruct the 

 river below James river. 



The Yelloivstone. — For the first one hundred miles above the mouth 

 the bottom lands are nearly all on the left bank ; and the first forty 

 miles are from four to five miles broad_, with beautiful, soft, rounded 

 bluffs to the west ; the banks of the river are clothed with large cotton- 

 wood trees, and the country presents one of the finest locations for a 

 military post and Indian reservation anywhere to be found. After 

 you advance about forty miles up the left bank, the bluffs begin to 

 come on this side almost to the river, and the bottom lands narrow 

 and the timber diminishes. A good route for wagons, however, exists 

 on this side for one hundred miles above the mouth. Having gone 

 thus far you meet with verv impracticable bluffs, barely permitting 

 of the passage of pack mules, to get around which with wagons, with- 

 out crossing the Yellowstone, you must travel out into the prairie 

 one or two days' journey, so as to head the difficult ravines. Bluffs 

 similar to these exist on the right bank all the way from the mouth 

 to this place, but here the river suddenly changes its position in the 

 valle}^ so as to leave the open valley on the right bank, and causes 

 the difficulty which exists on the other. 



This point is also the highest point navigable for steamboats, and 

 those even of very light draught cannot, except at high water, go 

 further than about fifty miles from the mouth, as, in the next space 

 of fifty miles, the channel is so very much divided up by wooded 

 islands and obstructed by gravel bars. But at the point before men- 

 tioned as the head of steamboat navigation, ledges of rock begin in 

 the bed of the stream, and about one- half mile below Powder river we 

 encounter a dangerous rapid, called by Captain Clarke "Wolf rapid." 

 Two miles above Powder river Captain Clarke describes another serious 

 rapid, which he calls "Bear rapid;"' and twenty miles above this 

 another, which he calls "Buffalo shoal," and which he speaks of as 

 being " the most difficult part of the Yellowstone river." All these 

 rapids are passed every year by the ]\Iackinac, boats of the American 

 Fur Company on their way to Fort Alexander Sarpie, and there are 

 probably no obstacles sufficient to prevent them from reaching the 

 point where this river debouches from the mountains. 



The valley, all the way to the mountains, is said to be practicable 

 for wagons. Above this point the river is said to be much enclosed 

 by the mountains, which are rugged and difficult, and covered with 

 pine forests. 



From Fort Union to Fort Alexander ^Sarpie, on the Yellowstone, 

 the Mackinac boats are from 50 to 60 feet long, drawing from 15 to 

 20 inches water, and make the distance, 225 miles, in from 15 to 30 

 days. 



None of the tributaries of the Yellowstone, (Clark's Fork, Big Horn, 



