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.
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