Under date
of May 23, the journal records the fact that ice appeared along
the edges of the river, and water froze upon their oars.
But notwithstanding the coolness of the nights and mornings,
mosquitoes were very troublesome.
The explorers judged that the cold was somewhat unusual for that locality,
inasmuch as the cottonwood trees lost their leaves by the frost,
showing that vegetation, generally well suited to the temperature of
its country, or habitat, had been caught by an unusual nip of the frost.
The explorers noticed that the air of those highlands was so pure and
clear that objects appeared to be much nearer than they really were.
A man who was sent out to explore the country attempted to reach a ridge
(now known as the Little Rocky Mountains), apparently about fifteen miles
from the river. He travelled about ten miles, but finding himself not
halfway to the object of his search, he returned without reaching it.
The party was now just westward of the site of the present town
of Carroll, Montana, on the Missouri. Their journal says: -
"The low grounds are narrow and without timber; the country is
high and broken; a large portion of black rock and brown sandy
rock appears in the face of the hills, the tops of which are
covered with scattered pine, spruce, and dwarf cedar; the soil
is generally poor, sandy near the tops of the hills, and nowhere
producing much grass, the low grounds being covered with little
else than the hyssop, or southernwood, and the pulpy-leaved thorn.
Game is more scarce, particularly beaver, of which we have seen
but few for several days, and the abundance or scarcity of which
seems to depend on the greater or less quantity of timber.
At twenty-four and one-half miles we reached a point of woodland
on the south, where we observed that the trees had no leaves,
and camped for the night."
The "hyssop, or southernwood," the reader now knows to be
the wild sage, or sage-brush. The "pulpy-leaved thorn"
mentioned in the journal is the greasewood ; and both
of these shrubs flourish in the poverty-stricken, sandy,
alkaline soil of the far West and Northwest. The woody fibre
of these furnished the only fuel available for early overland
emigrants to the Pacific.
The character of this country now changed considerably as the explorers
turned to the northward, in their crooked course, with the river.
On the twenty-fifth of May the journal records this: -
"The country on each side is high, broken, and rocky; the rock
being either a soft brown sandstone, covered with a thin stratum
of limestone, or else a hard, black, rugged granite, both usually
in horizontal strata, and the sand-rock overlaying the other.
Salts and quartz, as well as some coal and pumice-stone, still appear.
The bars of the river are composed principally of gravel;
the river low grounds are narrow, and afford scarcely any timber;
nor is there much pine on the hills. The buffalo have now become scarce;
we saw a polecat [skunk] this evening, which was the first for
several days; in the course of the day we also saw several herds
of the bighorned animals among the steep cliffs on the north,
and killed several of them."
The bighorned animals, the first of which were killed here,
were sometimes called "Rocky Mountain sheep." But sheep
they were not, bearing hair and not wool. As we have said,
they are now more commonly known as bighorns.
The patience of the explorers was rewarded, on Sunday, May 26, 1806, by their
first view of the Rocky Mountains. Here is the journal's record on that date: -
"It was here [Cow Creek, Mont.] that, after ascending the highest summit
of the hills on the north side of the river, Captain Lewis first caught
a distant view of the Rock mountains - the object of all our hopes,
and the reward of all our ambition. On both sides of the river,
and at no great distance from it, the mountains followed its course.
Above these at the distance of fifty miles from us, an irregular
range of mountains spread from west to northwest from his position.
To the north of these, a few elevated points, the most remarkable
of which bore N. 65'0 W., appeared above the horizon; and as the sun
shone on the snows of their summits, he obtained a clear and satisfactory
view of those mountains which close on the Missouri the passage
to the Pacific."
As they continued to ascend the Missouri they found themselves confronted
by many considerable rapids which sometimes delayed their progress.
They also set forth this observation: "The only animals we have observed
are the elk, the bighorn, and the hare common to this country."
Wayfarers across the plains now call this hare the jack-rabbit. The river
soon became very rapid with a marked descent, indicating their nearness
to its mountain sources. The journal says: -
"Its general width is about two hundred yards; the shoals are more frequent,
and the rocky points at the mouths of the gullies more troublesome to pass.
Great quantities of stone lie in the river and on its bank, and seem
to have fallen down as the rain washed away the clay and sand in which
they were imbedded. The water is bordered by high, rugged bluffs,
composed of irregular but horizontal strata of yellow and brown or black clay,
brown and yellowish-white sand, soft yellowish-white sandstone,
and hard dark brown freestone; also, large round kidney-formed irregular
separate masses of a hard black ironstone, imbedded in the clay and sand;
some coal or carbonated wood also makes its appearance in the cliffs,
as do its usual attendants, the pumice-stone and burnt earth.
