Mullan's wagon-road party, exploring a road from Fort Benton, on the Missouri River, to Walla Walla, on the Columbia, and our route the next day led up the Little Blackfoot on that road to Blackfoot City, where, instead of crossing through Mullan's Pass, we turned northward, and crossing a very rough rocky country, covered in every direction with masses of timber, struck Captain Lewis's route near Lincoln Gulch, on the Big Blackfoot, undoubtedly the stream referred to by Captain Lewis as the one called by the Indians the Cokalahishkit, or the "River of the road to the buffaloes." After a visit to the somewhat dilapidated mining camp of Lincoln Gulch, we followed up this stream and encamped, in a dismal drizzling rain, just where the stream came out of the mountains. Beyond this we could not take our wheels into the mountains, and during the evening prepared to continue the trip with pack-mules, sending our vehicles around by the road, to cross the mountains and meet us at the Dearborn River on the other side.

The morning of the 8th of October opened upon us in a sufficiently discouraging way. The ground was covered with a heavy fall of snow, and it was still coming down in a way which bid fair to make our trip across the summit a disagreeable one, even if it did not put an end to it altogether. But it was no time for hesitation, for if the storm should prove a severe one we might be detained here a week, snowed in in the mountains. Preparations were therefore at once made for our departure, and in the midst of the heavily falling snow we bade good-by to our wagons, and with horses and pack-mules started up the trail towards the mountains. Being now on the route of Captain Lewis, every foot of the way is of especial interest, and the journal is consulted at every step. We look around us in the "Prairies of the Knobs," so named by him "from the multitudes of knobs irregularly scattered through this country," but look in vain for the quantities of game which he reports as existing there. "We saw," he says, "goats, deer, great numbers of the burrowing squirrels, some curlew, bee-martins, woodpeckers, plover, robins, doves, ravens, hawks, ducks, a variety of sparrows, and yesterday (July 5th) observed swans on Werner's Creek." Now we see none of these, and perhaps no fact speaks more plainly of the advance made in the settlement of the country, than that a region which sixty-five years ago was teeming with game of all kinds is now a solitary wilderness. Not a living thing except ourselves is to be seen, and as we move along through the white waste, we brush from the heavily loaded limbs overhanging the long-unused trail the masses of snow which have accumulated there. There is very little wind, but the silently falling snow is very wet, and as it grows colder we begin to feel wet, chilly, and disagreeable, and finally halt to build a fire, around which

we all gather for warmth. When we resume the march, however, and commence to climb the long steep hill which leads to the summit, having previously left Lewis's trail and kept to the right on that of "the road to the buffaloes," we begin to feel the wind, which was sweeping as usual fiercely over the tops of the mountains. When at length we reached the summit, it was to find the trail totally obliterated by the deep snow, which was piled up in drifts by the heavy winds. We were in the midst of a howling storm, on the top of the Rocky Mountains, with no guide who knew anything of the features of the country, and no way to get out of it but by following a trail we could not see, except here and there where the snow was blown off of it. Our horses would not face the fierce gale and blinding clouds of snow, and we hunted for some time before discovering where the trail led down the mountain. When we at length found it, however, the marks upon the trees aided us in following it in spite of the snow, and being now protected by both the timber and the mountains from the storm we made very good progress, until we formed our bivouac high up on the eastern slope, with the design of having a hunt in the morning. Our camp was but a sorry one in the midst of the wet snow, and we ha no shelter but a wagon-sheet pitched as a tent; but we put it up in a little grove of timber, and a roaring fire soon gave us all the comfort we could reasonably expect under the circumstances, and we slept the sleep of tired travellers. The next morning the storm had considerably abated, and with our rifles we started out early in search of game. But we soon became aware that the hunting days of Lewis and Clarke were past, for after climbing over miles of the rough mountain spurs without seeing so much as a single deer, we returned to camp, packed up and resumed our trip eastward down the mountains. Our guide, as we issued from the foot-hills, announced that this was the modern Cadotte's Pass, and as we got farther away from the mountains, the landmarks around the entrance of Lewis and Clark's Pass, explored in the preceding summer, were distinctly recognized at about three miles to the north. of us; so that we had demonstrated not only the existence of two passes close together, but that they were the two described by Lewis, and named by him "Lewis and Clarke's Pass," and "the Road to the Buffaloes." We had a rough tedious ride after leaving the mountains, and it was long after dark before we reached a ranche, on the banks of the Dearborn River, where our vehicles were to meet us. Our pack-mules got separated from us in the darkness, and we were very glad to accept the hospitality of the ranche-man, eat his food and sleep on the floor in front of his blazing fire. The next morning our packs rejoined us, our wagons and buggies made their appearance, and jumping into the latter we in VOL. IV.-7

a few hours drove rapidly over the thirty miles which separated us from Fort Shaw.

Passing from one side of the Rocky Mountains to the other, nothing strikes the traveller more forcibly than the contrast between the scenery on the two sides. On the east, after you leave the mountains, there is a total absence of timber, except close alongside the few streams which water the country, and the high rolling prairie-lands commence to assume those features characteristic of the "prairie country" west of the Missouri River. From the top of the divide, the country looks anything but like a prairie, for it is broken up and washed out into an infinite variety of hills and dales, bluffs and bottom lands, and these appear to spread out before you as you advance, into an almost endless succession. But as you overlook the country and notice the prominent points in it, you will observe that whilst some of these have evidently been projected up from the general surface, like "Bird Tail Rock" and the adjacent peaks, others bear such a relation to each other, that there can be no doubt they have been left standing after all the rest of the country has been washed out. Cast your eye along the tops of the prominent peaks in front of you, and observe how nearly the formation and general level agree with each other, and if, in your mind's eye, you can manage to shut out the intervening valleys, you cannot fail to trace the general outline of that vast slope, which, before the deluge of water came to wash out its valleys, stretched eastward from the mountains like the great glacis of a fort. When you descend into this region too, you will note in detail the action of the water which in times past has swept over this country with a force which only the hardest and most enduring of rocks could resist. Standing upon the parade-ground at Fort Shaw, situated in one of these washed-out valleys, you can trace in profile on the opposite side of the river the long slope, extending from the snow mountains in the west, and gradually declining out of sight to the eastward, whilst if you examine the ground under your feet, where it is exposed on the bank of the river, you will find that, low down, it is composed of large rounded boulders, which become smaller and smaller as you approach the surface, until near the surface you find nothing but pebbles and gravel surrounded by loose soil. Now, if you turn your eyes to the southward, you will notice a line of rugged bluffs, which mark the continuation of the long slope on the other side of the river, and turning still farther to the south, the top of Crown Bute (Lewis and Clarke's Fort Mountain), is seen to continue the marking of the general surface in that direction. Ascend these bluffs anywhere, and when you reach the top you will see that the general surface of all is the same, and that the heights are merely the remnants of

a former level left standing. The work of demolition is still going on, but now very slowly, for the steep ledge of hard granite near the top, is succeeded by a long slope of disintegrated rock extending to the valley below. This is yearly increased, but the rains of spring and frosts of winter work more gradually than the heavy deluges of water, which in former times swept torrent-like across the face of the country.

Turning now to the western slope, we find an entirely different. state of affairs existing. There, instead of the total absence of timber, as on the eastern slope, the whole broken surface of the country is covered with a dense growth of timber, mostly pine. This probably is accounted for by the fact that the western winds, laden with moisture from the Pacific Ocean, are deprived of most of it as they pass over the high mountain ranges intervening, and after crossing the main divide, they sweep over the slope to the eastward as the dry winds so characteristic of this region. Trees will grow on the eastern slope, if only they are supplied with the requisite moisture, as has already been satisfactorily demonstrated. This is the case not only with trees, but with all sorts of grasses, all the small grains, and most of the common vegetables, and the socalled "bench lands" of the territory are destined to play an important part hereafter in agricultural products. Indian corn does not grow well, the nights are too cold, and in only a few favored localities will it mature. But the product of small grains is astonishingly large, and the flour produced from the wheat grown here makes the sweetest bread I ever tasted, although not so white as that made with Eastern flour. Vegetables, more especially roots, grow to a remarkable size, and even in soil strongly impregnated with alkali, the finest specimens of beets, turnips, carrots, etc., are produced.

These "bench lands" form a distinguishing feature of the landscape in this country, especially in the mountain valleys, where several of them are frequently found rising one above the other, forming well-marked terraces. I have often speculated as to the manner in which they were originally formed, and was much interested lately in an account of a lecture delivered by Prof. Tyndall descriptive of the so-called "parallel roads of Glen Roy," in Scotland, the description of which agrees perfectly with that of the "bench" lands of this region, except that the former are much narrower, varying from one to twenty yards. They are described as "three perfectly horizontal and parallel roads, directly opposite on each side, those on one side corresponding exactly in elevation to those on the other." It is somewhat remarkable that their perfectly horizontal position should not at once have suggested water in a state of rest as the cause of their origin, but with the charac

teristic tendency of the popular mind to assign any but a natural cause for such formations, they were at first supposed "to have been made for the heroes whose deeds have been sung by Ossian," and then that "they were designed for the chase, and were made after the spots were cleared in lines from wood, in order to tempt the animals in the open paths after they were roused, in order that they might come within reach of the bowmen, who might conceal themselves in the woods above and below!" The next supposition was that they were made for irrigating purposes, but any one who reflects upon the nature of water to seek its own level, and that irrigating ditches must have a certain inclination, would find this supposition incompatible with the horizontal position of the "roads." It remained for science, in the person of Dr. MacCulloch, to suggest that these "roads" were the borders of ancient lakes, whose waters were in some way held for a long time at the several levels, to enable the washings from the surrounding hills to form the level benches in the edges of the still water. The facts in the case were afterwards brought forward by Sir Thomas Dick Lander, whose explanation could not yet be accepted for the want of a demonstration regarding the barriers necessary fo hold the waters at those levels, the action of ancient glaciers not then being understood, and it remained for the great Agassiz, who had studied glacier action in his native Switzerland, to discover the marks of such action in Great Britain, and to pronounce, after a visit to Glen Roy, that the barriers which had obstructed the glens were glaciers. This ascription of glacier action attracted the attention of Prof. Tyndall, who made a visit to the Glen, in 1867, and was so perfectly satisfied with the evidences of the action of ice and water, that he says: "The theory which ascribes the parallel roads to lakes dammed by barriers of ice has, in my opinion, an amount of probability on its side which amounts to a practical demonstration of its truth."

There can, I think, be no question that the "bench" lands of this region are the result of similar action, and it only remains for science to demonstrate the existence of the remains of glaciers, some traces of which have already been observed at the outlets of the valleys, to render the demonstration perfectly conclusive.