268 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



been published. For the first eighty miles, from the mouth of the 

 caiion, the river is almost one continuous rapid, and numerous ledgy 

 islands are scattered along, which furnish coverts for large flocks of 

 ducks. The banks are generally abrupt, in many places i3recipitous, 

 thickly covered with stunted pines. Occasional accumulations of debris 

 spread out into small bottoms, covered with immense cotton-woods. The 

 banks on each side rise gradually into lofty hills, but the vegetation is 

 light. Long, high ranges of mountains approach the river on each side. 

 The water here is pure and very transparent. The bends of the stream 

 are long and straight reaches, where the eye can often follow it for six or 

 eight miles. Dense thickets of willow grow along the margin and on the 

 islands. The second day we came in sight of the vasl; ridge of yellow 

 sandstone, from which the river derives its name. This ridge appears 

 to be about 300 feet high, and this part twenty miles long ; the bluff it 

 forms being precipitous and the top covered with pines. The valley of 

 the river here is greatly expanded, spreading out into alluvial bottoms 

 six or eight miles wide, gradually rising into upland and foot-hills. The 

 soil here is equal to that of the Gallatin ; but the descent of the 

 river is much less rapid than above, miles intervening without any per- 

 ceptible inclination. The termination of this portion of the ridge is at 

 an angle of the river, where it has worn a passage through the rock on 

 each hand, exhibiting a sheer, bold precipice of stratified sandstone, 

 very hard and of deep ocher color. The river is quite shallow where 

 it crosses this ledge, which stretches off on the southwest side in a 

 straight line across the valley for twenty or thirty miles. The bottoms 

 here are extensive (between the ridge and river) and are susceptible of 

 high cultivation. There are frequently long groves of cotton-wood. 

 We passed through this marvelous ridge five or six times in traveling 

 three hundred miles. In some places it follows the river for miles, cast- 

 ing its somber shadow on the water. In others, it is curiously eroded 

 into resemblances of towers, castles, citadels, &c. At the terminus of 

 the ridge the river, increased to twice the size it has at the commence- 

 ment, by the contributions of the Rose Bud, Clarke's Fork, and Big 

 Horn, is fully one mile wide and very deep. Its waters turbid, its banks 

 low, it rolls an immense volume of water down undisturbed by a ripple, 

 through large, spreading meadows beautified by occasional trees and 

 cariDCted with a thick growth of grass. With the exception of a few 

 rapids, some of which are formidable, this is the general character of 

 the scenery until we approach the mouth of Powder River. Here a 

 sudden change takes place, and all at once we are ushered from the 

 highest state of verdure to that of extreme, absolute desolation. Here 

 commence the mauvaises terres, and from this point to its mouth the 

 same general features characterize the scenery as those found along 

 the Upper Missouri, intensified, if possible, by frequent vievrs of long 

 burnt plains, seamed with immense ravines and dotted with enormous 

 tables of baked clay. It is without exception the most horrible-looking 

 country I ever saw. The hills and mounds of stratified clay along the 

 bank of the river rise 1,500 feet, void of vegetation. The river is hero 

 a dark drab color, with shifting channels and numerous sand-bars. Its 

 clay-banks for hundreds of miles exhibit on each side continuous veins 

 of decomposed lignite. A railroad could easily be built along its course, 

 except the one hundred and eighty miles from the mouth of Powder 

 River downward. Above Powder River the obstructions are few and 

 easily overcome. Three or four hundred miles would be through the 

 largest and richest valley in Montana, yet unsettled, and not more than 

 1,500 or 2,000 feet above the level of the sea." 



