The Remaining Part
Of The River Precipitates Itself With A More Rapid Current,
But Being Received As It Falls By
The irregular and somewhat projecting
rocks below, forms a splendid prospect of perfectly white foam,
two hundred yards in length
And eighty in perpendicular elevation.
This spray is dissipated into a thousand shapes, sometimes flying
up in columns of fifteen or twenty feet, which are then oppressed
by larger masses of the white foam, on all of which the sun impresses
the brightest colors of the rainbow. Below the fall the water
beats with fury against a ledge of rocks, which extends across
the river at one hundred and fifty yards from the precipice.
From the perpendicular cliff on the north to the distance
of one hundred and twenty yards, the rocks are only a few feet
above the water; and, when the river is high, the stream finds
a channel across them forty yards wide, and near the higher
parts of the ledge, which rise about twenty feet, and terminate
abruptly within eighty or ninety yards of the southern side.
Between them and the perpendicular cliff on the south, the whole
body of water runs with great swiftness. A few small cedars grow
near this ridge of rocks, which serves as a barrier to defend
a small plain of about three acres, shaded with cottonwood;
at the lower extremity of which is a grove of the same trees,
where are several deserted Indian cabins of sticks; below which
the river is divided by a large rock, several feet above the surface
of the water, and extending down the stream for twenty yards.
At the distance of three hundred yards from the same ridge
is a second abutment of solid perpendicular rock, about sixty
feet high, projecting at right angles from the small plain on
the north for one hundred and thirty-four yards into the river.
After leaving this, the Missouri again spreads itself to its
previous breadth of three hundred yards, though with more than
its ordinary rapidity."
One of Lewis's men was sent back to inform Captain Clark of this
momentous discovery, which finally settled all doubt as to which was the
true Missouri.
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