214 NARRATIVE ОҒ 1855. 
Lewis and Clark's Pass to the Blackfoot, which had not been established by Mr. Lander in 
1853. I proposed to go up the stream flowing from Lewis and Clark's Pass to the point 
where this examination was abandoned, as stated in the report of Mr. Lander. So con- 
tinuing up the Blackfoot valley for four miles and a half, I came to the creek which I 
supposed to be the one flowing from Lewis and Clark's Pass. І found that up this portion 
of the valley there would be no difficulty in arranging grades to the ground without 
heavy excavation and embankment, and entering a low (comparatively speaking) cafion, 
from which the stream flowed into the Blackfoot valley, I found there would be no difficulty in 
keeping on side hills, making some sharp curvatures, and entering the valley at a suflicient 
height to obviate all difficulties ahead. We went up the stream and soon came into a large 
very gently rolling prairie of several thousand acres in extent, beautifully grassed, with cotton- 
wood on the streams, pine on the upper portion of the streams, and the country generally 
arable. As we passed up this prairie, looking eastward we saw the divide of the Rocky 
mountains, and we could perceive no special traces of the tributary between us and the divide. 
But the stream gradually gave out; and continuing almost northward, we fell into the trail 
passing from Lander’s Fork to the stream flowing from Lewis and Clark’s Pass, for which we had 
been searching, and over which trail the hoofs of our animals had passed that morning. Con- 
tinuing on the trail, we reached the stream with the satisfaction of knowing that, though we 
had learned some features of the country, we had yet pretty much all our work to do over 
again. After taking the necessary barometrical observations, I went down the stream for some 
two miles, one mile and a half of this distance lying over a remarkably uniformly descending 
river bottom; then the stream turned immediately to the south and passed through an imprac- 
ticable canon. In order to get a view of the country we immediately ascended some very steep 
bluffs to the eastward, towards the divide of the mountains, and finally reached a point where 
the whole country lay before us. Here we saw the roliing prairie over which we had passed 
this morning, the stream from Lewis and Clark's Pass winding on its left through the rocky 
cafion, and at our feet a very low divide, which made it almost a matter of demonstration to us 
that we could pass from the valley stream by а low eut to the open prairie, and gain the Big 
Blackfoot by the stream up which we had come. Immediately pushing down to the low divide 
referred to, I caused a sketch of the country to be made, had the necessary barometrical 
observations taken, and found not the slightest difficulty, by a cut of a few hundred feet, in 
carrying a railroad line down on grades not exceeding from sixty to sixty-five feet to its con- 
nection with the Big Blackfoot; and thus, partly by accident and partly by indefatigable 
exertions and good judgment, we were able to accomplish the connection of the line of the 
Big Blackfoot with the line from Lewis and Clark’s Pass. 
Starting now from the point where the trail from Lander’s Fork strikes the stream flowing 
from Lewis and Clark's Pass, we continued up the latter stream for five miles, passing over 
the most remarkable valley that I have ever seen in the immediate region of a mountain divide. 
(See sketch.) Its width and the declivities of the ground were remarkably uniform; the valley 
not less than half a mile wide; the bottom—excepting a small portion of the lower part, where 
were beaver dams—always above the freshets, until we came to a point where I halted for a 
few moments in order to observe with the barometer. Here there was a fork in the stream, 
the left hand branch coming immediately from Lewis and Clark’s Pass, and the larger and right 
hand fork coming from the north some little distance, judging from the quantity of water in the 
stream. We now kept up the left hand fork and passed over Lewis and Clark's Pass, where 
many observations were taken, both of the immediate basis of the divide on either slope and at 
