278 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



393. View on Upper Missouri ; Prairie bluffs, eleven hundred miles above Saiut 



Louis. Painted in 1832. 



394. View on Upper Missouri ; The Three Domes, fifteen mile above Mandans. 



A singular group of clay bluffs, like immense domes, with sky-lights. 

 Painted in 1832. 



(Plate No. 44, page 78, vol. 1, Catlin's Eight Years.) 



395. View on Upper Missouri ; the Square Hills, twelve hundred miles above Saint 



Louis. Painted in 1832. 



(Plate No. 123, page 11, vol. 2, Catlin's Eight Years.) 



A hundred miles above this I passed a curious feature, called the "Square Hills." 

 I landed my canoe, and went ashore, and to their tops, to examine them. Though 

 they appeared to be near the river, I found it half a day's journey to travel to and 

 from them, they being several miles from the river. On ascending them I found 

 them to be two or three hundred feet high, and rising on their sides at an angle of 

 forty-five degrees, and on their tops, in some places, for half a mile in length, per- 

 fectly level, with a green turf, and corresponding exactly with the tabular hills before 

 spoken of above the Mandans. I therein said that I should visit these hills on my 

 way down the river, and I am fully convinced, from close examination, that they are 

 a part of the same original superstratum which I therein described, though seven or 

 eight hundred miles separated from them. They agree exactly in character and also 

 in the materials of which they are composed, and I believe that some unaccountable 

 gorge of waters has swept away the intervening earth, leaving these solitary and iso- 

 lated, though incontrovertible, evidences that the summit level of all this great valley 

 has at one time been where the level surface of these hills now is, two or three hun- 

 dred feet above what is now generally denominated the summit level. — G. C. 



396. View on Upper Missouri ; river bluffs and white wolves in the foreground. 



Painted in 1832. (No plate.) 



397. View on Upper Missouri; beautiful prairie bluffs, above the Puncahs, 



ten hundred and fifty miles above Saint Louis. Painted in 1832. 



398. View on Upper Missouri; look from Floyd's grave, thirteen hundred miles 



above Saint Louis. 



399. View on Upper Missouri; river bluffs, thirteen hundred and twenty miles 



above Saint Louis. Painted in 1832. 



400. View on Upper Missouri; buffalo herds crossing the river. Batiste, Bogard, 



and I passing them in our bark canoe, with some danger to our lives. A 

 buffalo scene in their running season. Painted in 1832. 

 (Plate No. 126, page 13, vol. 2, Catlin's Eight Years.) 



In one instance, near the mouth of White River, we met the most immense herd 

 crossing the Missouri River, and from an imprudence got our boat into imminent 

 danger amongst them, from which we were highly delighted to make our escape. It 

 was in the midst of the "running season," and we had heard the "roaring" (as it is 

 called) of the herd when we were several miles from them. When we came in sight. 

 we were actually terrified at the immense numbers that were streaming down the 

 green hills on one side of the river and galloping up and over the bluffs on the other. 

 The river was filled, and in parts blackened, with their heads and horns, as they were 

 swimming about, following up their objects, and making desperate battle whilst they 

 were swimming. 



I deemed it imprudent for our canoe to be dodging amongst them, and ran it ashore 

 for a few hours, where we laid waiting for the opportunity of seeing the river clear ; 



