From The Southern Shore It Extends Obliquely
Upward About One Hundred And Fifty Yards, And Then Forms An Acute
Angle Downward Nearly To The Commencement Of Four Small Islands Close
To The Northern Side.
From the perpendicular pitch to these islands,
a distance of more than one hundred yards, the water glides down
A sloping rock with a velocity almost equal to that of its fall:
above this fall the river bends suddenly to the northward.
While viewing this place, Captain Lewis heard a loud roar above him,
and, crossing the point of a hill a few hundred yards, he saw one
of the most beautiful objects in nature: the whole Missouri is
suddenly stopped by one shelving rock, which, without a single niche,
and with an edge as straight and regular as if formed by art,
stretches itself from one side of the river to the other for at least
a quarter of a mile. Over this it precipitates itself in an even,
uninterrupted sheet, to the perpendicular depth of fifty feet,
whence, dashing against the rocky bottom, it rushes rapidly down,
leaving behind it a sheet of the purest foam across the river.
The scene which it presented was indeed singularly beautiful;
since, without any of the wild, irregular sublimity of the lower falls,
it combined all the regular elegancies which the fancy of a painter
would select to form a beautiful waterfall. The eye had scarcely
been regaled with this charming prospect, when at the distance
of half a mile Captain Lewis observed another of a similar kind.
To this he immediately hastened, and found a cascade stretching across
the whole river for a quarter of a mile, with a descent of fourteen feet,
though the perpendicular pitch was only six feet. This, too, in any
other neighborhood, would have been an object of great magnificence;
but after what he had just seen, it became of secondary interest.
His curiosity being, however, awakened, he determined to go on,
even should night overtake him, to the head of the falls.
"He therefore pursued the southwest course of the river,
which was one constant succession of rapids and small cascades,
at every one of which the bluffs grew lower, or the bed of the
river became more on a level with the plains. At the distance
of two and one-half miles he arrived at another cataract,
of twenty-six feet. The river is here six hundred yards wide,
but the descent is not immediately perpendicular, though the river
falls generally with a regular and smooth sheet; for about
one-third of the descent a rock protrudes to a small distance,
receives the water in its passage, and gives it a curve.
On the south side is a beautiful plain, a few feet above the level
of the falls; on the north, the country is more broken, and there
is a hill not far from the river. Just below the falls is a little
island in the middle of the river, well covered with timber.
Here on a cottonwood tree an eagle had fixed her nest, and seemed
the undisputed mistress of a spot, to contest whose dominion neither
man nor beast would venture across the gulfs that surround it,
and which is further secured by the mist rising from the falls.
This solitary bird could not escape the observation of the Indians,
who made the eagle's nest a part of their description of the falls,
which now proves to be correct in almost every particular,
except that they did not do justice to the height.
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