164 NARRATIVE OF 1853. 
in that pass. In the one case the depth was six feet, and in the other case it was reported to 
be twenty feet or more. Mr. Tinkham exhibited great hardihood, vigor, and endurance in the 
performance of his duty, from the time he left my camp on the Bitter Root, on the "th day of 
October, until the date of his arrival in Olympia. During this time he traversed 1,164 miles 
of country, of which 300 were on foot. The animals, with the exception of four, which 
he sent back from the snows of the Bitter Root to Fort Owen, arrived safely in charge of 
Pearson and French. This I had the satisfaction to learn some weeks afterward in a report 
from Lieutenant Mullan. I will now give a brief account of this extended line of exploration 
by Mr. Tinkham. 
Mr. Tinkham left the last camping ground made by Lieutenant Donelson with the main train 
on Jocko river, and travelling northwardly, followed Jocko river to its mouth, and then 
proceeded up the valley of the Flathead river, which he found to be wide, and partially 
bordered by wooded hills nearly to the lake. It is a fine, clear stream, from 100 to 150 yards 
in width, occasionally fordable, and with a swift current, estimated to have a descent of about 
ten feet per mile. | 
Passing around the western shore of the lake, among wooded and rocky hills, at the foot of 
the lake is a small green prairie of good soil mingled with fragments of trap rock. 
At the upper end of the lake lies an extensive prairie, which is twenty miles in width, and 
extends far north of where he left it to ascend the mountains. 
Following up the most eastern fork of the stream which supplies the lake, he came to the 
wooded mountains twenty-eight miles from the lake, closing in on the valley of the branch he 
followed; then, again dividing, they leave a nearly level but wooded basin for fourteen miles, 
where the river forks, the trail following the northern tributary. This now becomes walled in 
by lofty precipices, with gray, naked peaks rising in bold relief from the dark forests below 
them. The valley is narrow and wooded, the trail laborious and difficult, and grass scarce 
west of the summit. A bare, rocky, curving ridge heads the valley over which the trail winds, 
often only wide enough for the path of a horse, and quite impracticable for wagons. It is 2,150 
feet higher than the valley, and 7,600 above the sea. i 
He passed this summit on the 20th of October, and although up to this time there had been , 
fine, clear autumnal weather, as he rose in the valley frost and ice occurred, and while crossing 
there was a snow-storm, which continued till the next day, with severe cold weather on the 
way to Fort Benton, the thermometer reaching as low as 3° above 0. Тһе contrast in the 
growth of the trees on the west and east sides of the mountains was remarkable. On the west 
they continued large and thrifty almost to the summit, but on the east, what little growth there 
was, was of short scrubby pines. 
Mr. Tinkham, leaving Fort Benton on the 31st of October, 1853, forded the Missouri a short 
distance below the fort, where it was about six hundred feet wide and three feet deep. Thence 
he travelled up near its south bank, keeping at some distance to avoid the deep coulées, for 
ffty-eight miles, and passing by the Great Falls. Above these the country improves in 
appearance, is less broken with coulées, and not bordered by the steep bluffs“as below. The 
soil and grass are better, and the river banks more wooded. 
Belt Mountain creek where crossed was бі 
with difficulty. 
He considered the road much better on the north and west side of the Missouri. Here he 
was compelled to ford the Missouri by almost impassable rocky bluffs coming down to the river, 
ghty feet wide, and so deep that a ford was found 
