CHIMNEY ROCK. 51 



weather into jutting, round abutments and castellated towers. At 

 this point the ridge is two miles wide, very much broken, and the 

 side so steep that it was impossible to keep the saddle while ascend- 

 ing. Descending the north slope, we were guided through a series 

 of narrow and extremely intricate ravines by a well-worn buffalo- 

 trail into the plain below. Before us was the Chimney Rock, 

 a point on this route so well known and so often described. In the 

 strata of clay, sand, sandstones, and siliceous limestones, over which 

 we have been travelling for the last three days, the clay is most 

 predominant in this vicinity and to the eastward of Scott's Bluff. 

 The partial disintegration of these strata has in some places 

 given to the bluffs the most curious shapes, and among others, 

 that of the Chimney Rock. This singular conformation has 

 been, undoubtedly, at one time, a portion (probably a projecting 

 shoulder) of the main chain of bluffs bounding the valley of the 

 Platte, and has been separated from it by the action of water. It 

 consists of a conical elevation of about one hundred feet high, its 

 sides forming an angle of about 45° with the horizon ; from the 

 apex rises a nearly circular and perpendicular shaft of clay, now 

 from thirty-five to forty feet in height. The cone has, I think, 

 been formed by the disintegration of the softer portion of the bluff 

 arranging itself at its natural angle in a conical form, while the 

 remainder of the earth has been carried away by the floods and 

 distributed over the plain, leaving the broad valley which is at pre- 

 sent found between it and the main bluff. The Chimney, being 

 composed of more tenacious materials, has been left standing in a 

 vertical position, and has been worn into its present circular form 

 by the gradual action of the elements. That the shaft has been 

 very much higher than at present, is evident from the correspond- 

 ing formation of the bluff, as well as from the testimony of all our 

 voyageurs^ with whom it was for years a landmark or beacon visi- 

 ble for forty or fifty miles, both up and down the river. It is the 

 opinion of Mr. Bridger that it was reduced to its present height by 

 lightning, or some other sudden catastrophe, as he found it broken 

 on his return from one of his trips to St. Louis, though he had 

 passed it uninjured on his way down. Its vicinity has long been 

 a favourite encamping ground for the emigrants, as there are 

 springs of water near and the grass is tolerably good. In crossmg 

 over from the valley of Lawrence's Fork, it was noticed that the 

 ridge had been at one time covered with a tolerably dense growth 

 of cedar. These trees have nearly all died, and their trunks are 



