274 
FROM BLACKFOOT TRAIL TO CLARK’S FORK. 
here attains, has an elevation of about 4,500 feet, and, as near as I can judge at this time without 
my notes, about fifteen miles distant from the pass. The entrance has an elevation of about 
5,000 feet, leaving to be gained of ascent only five hundred feet; so that, were it possible to 
unite the pass with this plain by a continuous grade, the approach would be remarkably easy. 
Between us, however, and the pass, flow the tributaries of Beaver creek, cutting the ground in 
deep ravines, and preventing a regular gradation for the interval remaining to the pass. The best 
approach which, wdth my present knowledge, I feel justified in declaring practicable, is with about 
eight miles of sixty feet grade, tunnelling the summit in the ravine to the right and to the north of 
the trail, thus shortening the tunnelling distance, and perforating the mountain at about the eleva¬ 
tion of 5,000 feet, and with a length which I estimate at four and one-quarter miles. In making 
the eastern approach, the line must not drop down into the valley of Dearborn river. The west¬ 
ern descent, with a tunnel of four and one-quarter miles, can probably be accomplished with a 
forty-foot grade. I ought to have spent more time on this summit, but having been separated 
from my party, and being without food, and supposing that your careful examination would render 
it unnecessary, I hastened down the valley to overtake the parties ahead, joining you the next 
day, after making the passage of the summit—Saturday, September 24. I may state here that an 
observation made by Wilson while on the summit, gives as its height 5,537 feet—a result much 
lower than that given by the barometer at the time of your passage of the divide. It is not 
unlikely that the true height is between these two results. 
On Monday, the 26th of September, I again left you, with instruction to take a trail connecting 
the valley of Blackfoot and Jocko rivers, and note its practicability as a railway route. The 
information which had been obtained from the guide Antoine was, that there was a good trail 
connecting these valleys, and that there was no connecting trail leading to any other locality. I 
found no trail until early on the day after leaving you. My barometer, from leakage, became 
useless that same night; and from having been led astray by the trail which I followed, and 
having now before me no record of my notes, I feel able to give little reliable information as to this 
region. My trail, however, finally led me into a fine, wide valley, walled in on either side by 
high mountains of singular boldness and beauty, which I descended, until soon I got so far into 
the valley that there was no getting out of it, and my only chance was to go ahead, which I did 
for several days, the valley continuing to retain its wide and favorable character, until, by the 
guidance of some Kootenaies Indians whom 1 fell in with, I was led to a trail which forked from 
the valley trail, and passed over the mountains to the left or the southwest side. My animals 
had become very tired from working through fallen timber, missing the trail, &c., and more 
especially as the valley was wooded and furnished a scanty supply of grass; and before attempt¬ 
ing the mountain trail I halted for a day of rest, on Sunday, the second day of October. The 
mountain trail consumed a day and a half or near two days before I struck into the plains on the 
southwest side—a wide, open prairie valley, in which is a small trading-house of the Hudson’s 
Bay Company, and which valley is very near to, or is connected with, Clark’s fork. Jocko river 
is separated from the valley by only a small ridge; and on the fifth of October, at night, I 
encamped in the immediate vicinity of your last camp on the same river a few days after. The 
valley, which I followed for several days between the mountain ridges, appeared to reach into 
Flathead lake. It is wooded, and has growing in it a great deal of straight and valuable pine 
timber; has a great deal of gravel plain ; and were it not that I conceive it to be too much out of 
the way, running too far north, it would make an admirable link in our railway line; its magnetic 
course is about north 45° west. Between this and the Jocko river there is another river, and the 
view of its valley which we had from near the small trading-post of the Hudson’s Bay Company 
is very prepossessing. It is open and grassed; wide, with a gradual rise. 
The summit of the stream which I followed into the mountains is also the summit of another 
stream, which is probably the one that came out at the trading-post, or else may be the Jocko 
river. If it should prove to be the former, it is probable that there is a highly favorable line of 
