From The
Casual Hints Given In The Travelling Memoranda Of Mr. Stuart,
This Mountain Would Seem To Offer A Rich Field Of Speculation For
The Geologist.
Here was a plain three miles in diameter, strewed
with pumice stones and other volcanic reliques, with a lake in
the centre, occupying what had probably been the crater.
Here
were also, in some places, deposits of marine shells, indicating
that this mountain crest had at some remote period been below the
waves.
After pausing to repose, and to enjoy these grand but savage and
awful scenes, they began to descend the eastern side of the
mountain. The descent was rugged and romantic, along deep ravines
and defiles, overhung with crags and cliffs, among which they
beheld numbers of the ahsahta or bighorn, skipping fearlessly
from rock to rock. Two of them they succeeded in bringing down
with their rifles, as they peered fearlessly from the brow of
their airy precipices.
Arrived at the foot of the mountain, the travellers found a rill
of water oozing out of the earth, and resembling in look and
taste, the water of the Missouri. Here they encamped for the
night, and supped sumptuously upon their mountain mutton, which
they found in good condition, and extremely well tasted.
The morning was bright, and intensely cold. Early in the day they
came upon a stream running to the east, between low hills of
bluish earth, strongly impregnated with copperas. Mr. Stuart
supposed this to be one of the head waters of the Missouri, and
determined to follow its banks. After a march of twenty-six
miles, however, he arrived at the summit of a hill, the prospect
of which induced him to alter his intention. He beheld, in every
direction south of east, a vast plain, bounded only by the
horizon, through which wandered the stream in question, in a
south-south-east direction. It could not, therefore, be a branch
of the Missouri. He now gave up all idea of taking the stream for
his guide, and shaped his course towards a range of mountains in
the east, about sixty miles distant, near which he hoped to find
another stream.
The weather was now so severe, and the hardships of travelling so
great, that he resolved to halt for the winter, at the first
eligible place. That night they had to encamp on the open
prairie, near a scanty pool of water, and without any wood to
make a fire. The northeast wind blew keenly across the naked
waste, and they were fain to decamp from their inhospitable
bivouac before the dawn.
For two days they kept on in an eastward direction, against
wintry blasts and occasional snow storms. They suffered, also,
from scarcity of water, having occasionally to use melted snow;
this, with the want of pasturage, reduced their old pack-horse
sadly. They saw many tracks of buffalo, and some few bulls,
which, however, got the wind of them, and scampered off.
On the 26th of October, they steered east-northeast, for a wooded
ravine in a mountain, at a small distance from the base of which,
to their great joy, they discovered an abundant stream, running
between willowed banks.
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