Lewis and Clark Reach the Yellowstone

On April 26th they reached the Yellowstone River, which they learned from the Indians rises in the Rocky Mountains near the Missouri and the Platte, and is navigable for canoes almost to its head.

Continuing The Lewis and Clark Expedition,
our selection from an essay published in Great Events by Famous People, Vol. 15 by Robert Southey published in 1905. The selection is presented in 6.4000000000000004 easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in The Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Time: 1805

Captain Clark says in his notebook that there is reason to believe that the strata of coal in the hills cause the fire. It is the fault of the Government that there was no naturalist in this expedition, and it is to the credit of the officers who conducted it that they should have examined so carefully all they saw, and recorded it as it appeared to them. “We found several stones,” they say, “which seemed to have been wood, first carbonated and then petrified by the action of the waters of the Missouri, which has the same effect on many vegetable substances.” Patrick Gass saw part of a log quite petrified, and of which good whetstones, or hones, could be made. Salt also is abundantly produced on the surface of the earth; many of the streams which come from the hills were strongly impregnated with it. Up the White-earth River the salts were so abundant as, in some places, to whiten the ground. The party were now tormented with sore eyes occasioned by sand, which was driven from the sandbars in such clouds as often to hide from them the view of the opposite bank. The particles of this sand are so fine and light that it floats for miles in the air like a column of thick smoke and penetrates everything. “We were compelled,” says the writer, “to eat, drink, and breathe it very copiously.”

On April 26th they reached the Yellowstone River, which they learned from the Indians rises in the Rocky Mountains near the Missouri and the Platte, and is navigable for canoes almost to its head.

The country thus far had presented few striking features. From the mouth of the Missouri to the Platte, about six hundred miles, it is described as very rich land with a sufficient quantity of timber; for fifteen hundred miles, “good second-rate land,” rather hilly than level; cottonwood and willows along the course of the streams; the upland almost entirely without trees and spreading into boundless prairies. There are Indian trails along the river, but they do not always follow its windings. There are also paths made by the buffaloes and other animals; the buffalo trail being at least ten feet wide. The appearances of fire had now ceased; the salts were still seen in the ravines and at the base of the small hills.

The general width of the river was now about two hundred yards; it had become very rapid with a very perceptible descent; the shoals were more frequent and the rocky points at the mouth of the gullies more difficult to pass. The tow-line, whenever the banks would permit it, had been found the safest mode of ascending the stream, and the most expeditious, except under a sail with a steady breeze; but this seems not to have been fore seen, or not to have been properly provided for, as their ropes were nearly all made of elk-skin, and much worn and rotted by exposure to the weather. At this time everything depended upon them.

“We are sometimes,” says the journal, “obliged to steer the canoes through the points of sharp rocks rising a few inches above the surface of the water, and so near to each other that, if our ropes gave way, the force of the current drives the sides of the canoe against them, and must inevitably upset them or dash them to pieces. Several times they gave way, but fortunately always in places where there was room for the canoe to turn without striking the rock; yet with all our precautions it was with infinite risk and labor that we passed these points.”

To add to these difficulties there fell a heavy rain, which made the bank so slippery that the men who drew the towing lines could scarcely keep their footing, and the mud was so adhesive that they could not wear their moccasins. Part of the time they were obliged to be up to their armpits in the cold water, and frequently to walk over sharp fragments of rock; yet painful as this toil was, they bore it not merely with patience, but with cheerfulness. Earth and stones also were falling from the high bluffs, so that it was dangerous to pass under them. The difficulties of this part of the way were soon rewarded by some of the most extraordinary scenery which any travelers have ever described. The description may best be given in the words of the journal:

We came to a high wall of black rock, rising from the water’s edge on the south, above the cliffs of the river; this continued about a quarter of a mile, and was succeeded by a high open plain, till, three miles farther, a second wall, two hundred feet high, rose on the same side. Three miles farther, a wall of the same kind, about two hundred feet high and twelve in thickness, appeared to the north. These hills and river-cliffs exhibit a most extraordinary and romantic appearance. They rise in most places almost perpendicularly from the water to the height of between two hundred and three hundred feet, and are formed of very white sandstone, so soft as to yield readily to the impression of water: in the upper part of which lie imbedded two or three horizontal strata of white free stone, insensible to the rain, and on the top is a dark rich loam, which forms a gradually ascending plain, from a mile to a mile and a half in extent, when the hills again rise abruptly to the height of about three hundred feet more.

In trickling down the cliffs, the water has worn the soft sandstone into a thousand grotesque figures, among which, with a little fancy, may be discerned elegant ranges of freestone buildings, with columns variously sculptured and supporting long and elegant galleries, while the parapets are adorned with statuary. On a nearer approach they represent every form of elegant ruins; columns, some with pedestals and capitals entire; others mutilated and prostrate; some rising pyramidally over each other till they terminate in a sharp point. These are varied by niches, alcoves, and the customary appearance of desolated magnificence. The illusion was increased by the number of martins, which had built their globular nests in the niches and hovered over these columns as in our cities they are accustomed to frequent large stone structures.”

James Davie Butler began here. Robert Southey began here.

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