240 GEOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
and extensive plain succeeds to this low meadow, which reaches the hills. In the meadow a 
large spring rises about a quarter of a mile from this southeast fork, into which it discharges 
itself on the right side. Between the southeast and middle forks adistant range of snow- 
topped mountains spread from east to south above the irregular broken hills nearer to this spot. 
On the middle fork the low grounds are several miles in width, forming a smooth, beautiful green 
meadow. Between these two forks, and near their junction with that from the southwest, is a 
position admirably well calculated for a fort. An extensive plain lies between the middle and 
southwest forks which is more serpentine in its course than the other two, and possesses more 
timber in its meadows. This timber consists almost exclusively of the narrow-leaved cotton- 
wood, with an intermixture of box-elder and sweet willow. Nearly all around us are broken 
ridges of country like that below, through which these united streams appear to have forced 
their passage. On Captain Clark’s route from the forks of the Missouri, in 1806, to the Yellow- 
stone, across a spur of the Belt mountains, he found the distance forty-eight miles, the greater 
part of which is through a level plain; indeed, from the eastern branch of Gallatin river, which 
is navigable for small canoes, the distance is not more than eighteen miles, with an excellent 
road over a high, dry country, with hills of considerable height and no difficulty in passing. 
