:III.-EXPLORATIONS ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER FROM THE HEAD 

 I OF CLARKE'S FORK TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN, MADE IN THE 

 I SUMMER OF 1883, WITH REFERENCE TO THE SELECTION OF A 



SUITABLE PLACE FOR ESTABLISHING A SALMON-BREEDING 



STATION. 



By Livingston Stone. 



In the Territory of Montana, on the great Continental divide which 

 separates the Atlantic slope of ISTorth America from the Pacific slope, 

 ind near where it is intersected by the forty-sixth parallel of lati- 

 tude, is a very interesting spot. Here two tiny rivulets, close to each 

 Dther at their source, set out on a long and widely diverging journey; 

 Due, flowing southward and taking a strangely circuitous course, be- 

 3omes the Missouri Kiver, and finally empties its waters into the At- 

 lantic through the broad delta of the Mississippi, 4,000 miles from where 

 it started; and the other, flowing northward, becomes at last the Co- 

 umbia River, and enters the Pacific Ocean through an outlet 15 miles 

 ;vide and fully 1,200 miles from its source. The latter rivulet, which 

 s the one with which this report is concerned, although it is, correctly 

 speaking, Clarke's Fork of the Columbia River, is not generally known 

 3y that name until it has become the river which is formed by the junc- 

 aon of the Flathead and Missoula. Looking now for the various sources 

 ^hich have formed this comparatively large river, we find that they all 

 lead in that part of the Bitter Root Mountains and the main range of 

 )f the Rockies which, roughly speaking, lie between the forty-fifth and 

 brty-eighth parallels of latitude and receive the waters of all the nu- 

 nerous small streams which flow from the southwest slope of the Rocky 

 Mountain range and the northwest slope of the Bitter Root range. 

 Most of the streams rising in the Bitter Root Mountains flow into the 

 Bitter Root River, while the streams rising in the Rocky Mountain 

 'ange flow into the Big Blackfoot River and the Hellgate River, which 

 atter stream is known a few miles above, and from there to where it 

 leads in the mountains, as the Deer Lodge River. Just above Mis- 

 ioula, Mont., the Big Blackfoot River and the Hellgate River unite 

 tnd flow together to Missoula, where they receive the waters of the 

 Bitter Root River from the south. Below the junction of these streams, 

 it Missoula, the river is known as the Missoula River, until it receives 

 he waters of the Flathead River from the north, at the southeastern 

 'nd of the Coeur d'Alene range of mountains, below which junction it 



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