Little Missouri River

“ The Missouri itself is about five hundred yards in width; the point of union is low and subject to inundations for two hundred and fifty yards, it then rises a little above high water mark, and continues so as far back as the hills. On the south of the Kanzas the hills or highlands come within one mile and a half of the river; on the north of the Missouri they do not approach nearer than several miles; but on all sides the country is fine. ”

“ It would hardly be feasible to correct the windage by foresting the land. The bluffs of the Missouri are often clothed with vegetation as far as the debouchure of the Platte River. Above that point the timber, which is chiefly cotton-wood, is confined to ravines and bottom lands, varying in width from ten to fifteen miles above Council Bluffs, which is almost continuous to the mouth of the James River. Every where, except between the mouth of the Little Cheyenne and the Cannon Ball rivers, there is a sufficiency of fuel for navigation ”

“ That the Saline or Salt river, which in some seasons is too brackish to be drank, falls into it from the south about thirty miles up, and a little above it Elkhorn river from the north, running nearly parallel with the Missouri. The river is, in fact, much more rapid than the Missouri, the bed of which it fills with moving sands, and drives the current on the northern shore, on which it is constantly encroaching. At its junction the Platte is about six hundred yards wide, and the same number of miles from the Mississippi. ”

“ There are steep bluffs along the river banks, caused by the wearing away of the drift and rocks by the water. The State is covered with prairie land, with no swamps or natural forests. The water system is divided into two parts, those rivers flowing into the Mississippi in the E., and those flowing into the Missouri in the W. Among the former are the Upper Iowa, Turkey, Maquoketa, Wapsipinicon, Cedar, Iowa, Skunk, Des Moines, and Boone, while the Missouri system includes the Chariton, Grand Platte, Nodaway, Nishnabotna, Boyer, Maple, Little Sioux, Rock, and Floyd rivers. ”

“ It is so with the Missouri River. Carlyle was not, I think, speaking of rivers; but he was speaking of masterpieces—and so am I.
It makes little difference to me whether or not an epic goes at a hexameter gallop through the ages, or whether it chooses to be a flood of muddy water, ripping out a channel from the mountains to the sea. It is merely a matter of how the great dynamic force shall express itself.
I have seen trout streams that I thought were better lyrics than I or any of my fellows can ever hope to create. ”

“ They went up the Rue de la Place and out at the side of the fort. There were no houses save here and there a few wigwams, and Indian children playing about in the front of them. Cultivated fields stretched out. The King’s Highway marked the western limit of the municipality; all the rest was the King’s domain, to be granted to future settlers. There was the wide prairie, and to the northward the great mound. They mounted this, and then they could see up the winding of the river to the chain of rocks, and the Missouri on its way to join the greater stream and be merged in it. ”

“ The Osage River enters Missouri from Kansas about 60 miles south of the Missouri River, and flowing a little south of east empties into that river a few miles below Jefferson City. It thus forms a natural line of defense across the State, which Gen. Price's soldierly eye had noted, and he advised the Governor to order his troops to take up their position behind it, gain time for organization, and prepare for battle for possession of the State. ”

“ To the west lay the barren lands of the Little Missouri, through which Sully pushed with his military expedition against the Sioux on the Yellowstone. An army flung boldly through a dead land—a land without forage, and waterless—a labyrinth of dry ravines and ghastly hills! ”

“ He succeeded in digging up a spark-coil—and that is all I ever saw of the engine.
During my waiting at Bismarck, I had a talk with Captain Baker, manager of the Benton Packet Line. We agreed in regard to the Government's neglect of duty toward the country's most important natural thoroughfare, the Missouri River. About Sioux City, the Government operates a snag-boat, the Mandan, at an expense ridiculously disproportionate to its usefulness. The Mandan is little more than an excursion boat maintained for a few who are paid for indulging in the excursions. ”

“ Small birds are also abundant in the plains. Here, too, are great quantities of grasshoppers, or crickets; and, among other animals, large ants, with a reddish-brown body and legs, and a black head, which build little cones of gravel ten or twelve inches high, without a mixture of sticks, and with but little earth. In the river we see a great abundance of fish, but cannot tempt them to bite by any thing on our hooks."
THE FORKS OF THE MISSOURI.
"July 28, 1805.—From the height of a limestone cliff, Capt. Lewis observed the three forks of the Missouri, of which this river is one. ”

“ With the lower Mississippi, the river has a total length of about 4200 miles, which is equaled by no other river in the world. The Missouri is a swift and turbid stream, navigable only by flat-bottomed steamboats. During the flood period in early summer it can be ascended to Great Falls, Mont., about 2300 miles from the mouth, but in low water navigation is suspended above the junction of the Yellowstone. At Great Falls the Missouri passes over a series of cataracts, descending a vertical distance of 350 feet in 16 miles. The highest falls are 87 feet. ”

“ During its long course from the far away Rockies to its junction with the mighty Mississippi, the Missouri River penetrates every variety of country one can think of. In many places it passes through vast stretches of prairie land, where, as far as the eye can reach, the country is like a billowy sea, being covered with grass. ”

“ The Missouri River would constitute nearly the whole of its western boundary. In the northerly part the Mouse and Pembina Rivers are among its largest streams; in the middle flows the large and finely wooded Shayenne, "whose valley possesses a fertile soil and offers many inducements to its settlement;" while towards the south it would have the Jacques, the Big Sioux, the Vermillion, and the head waters of the St. Peter's. In its supply of copious streams, nature seems there to have been lavish. ”

“ A quarter of a century has nearly elapsed since then, and, in the opinion of many competent river men, there is still room for much improvement, not only in the river, but in the method of arrangements for designing and carrying out the improvements.
The Missouri River, the great tributary to the Mississippi, has often been described as one of the most treacherous and aggressive rivers in the universe. ”

“ Grandest of American rivers though it is, you will be glad to get away from it to a noble stream like the Columbia, to a headstrong flood like the Missouri, or an inland sea like the Mississippi; on them at least you can draw a full breath and speak aloud without a feeling that the silent mountains may fall on you or the raging river swallow you up.
In the vast territory lying between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean the rivers are fast being harnessed for a work that will one day make the most barren spots fertile. ”

“ This was the rush and the roar of the incoming billows of the terrible Missouri, the most tremendous river upon this globe. It enters the Mississippi through a channel half a mile in breadth, rushing down with a sort of maniacal fury, from its sources among the Rocky Mountains at the distance of three thousand and ninety-six miles. ”

“ Cottonwood, willow, cedar and walnut trees grow upon the banks that are for a time left undisturbed, but years later the eroding current returns to undermine these banks, the trees fall in and are carried down stream as snags (or “sawyers”) , which are especially dangerous to navigation. The variation of level is great and it varies greatly in different parts of the river’s course: it is about 19 ft. at Kansas City, about 25 ft. at St Charles, Missouri, and about 8 ft. at Fort Benton, Montana. It is estimated that the Missouri’s average discharge per second amounts to about 94,000 cub. ”

“ The banks of the stream were lined with the villages of the Indians. Their wigwams were of a great variety of structure. The scenes presented were astonishing in their wild and picturesque aspect. Crowds of weird-like savages would often be collected on the bluffs, watching the appalling phenomenon of the passing steamer.
The Missouri is different, perhaps, from any other river in the world. Its boiling, turbid waters rush impetuously on, in an unceasing current, for hundreds of leagues, with scarcely a cove, an eddy, or any resting place where a canoe can be tranquilly moored. ”

“ The Missouri River is formed in southwestern Montana, by the union of the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin Rivers. Its length from the source of the Madison River in the Yellowstone National Park to its confluence with the Mississippi above St. Louis is about three thousand miles. The first exploration of the headwaters of the Missouri was by the famous 383 expedition of Captains Lewis and Clark in 1805, who ascended to its sources, and crossing the Rockies descended the Snake and Columbia Rivers into Oregon. ”

“ The Platte runs a course of fifteen degrees of longitude, from west to east, or more than eight hundred miles.
The Kansas River has a considerable resemblance to the Missouri, but its current is more moderate, and its water less turbid, except at times of high floods. Its valley, like that of the Missouri, has a deep and fertile soil, bearing forests of cotton-wood, sycamore, and other trees, interspersed with meadows; but in ascending, trees become more and more scattered, and at length disappear almost entirely, the country at its sources being one immense prairie. ”

“ Irrigation is claiming every year more of the flow of Western rivers. Even the tricksy old Missouri is contributing somewhat to irrigation, but in the queerest possible way.
With all its other eccentricities, the Missouri River leaks badly; for you know there are leaky rivers as well as leaky boats. The government [Pg 63] engineers once measured the flow of the Missouri away up in Montana, and again some hundred miles further down stream. ”

“ While viewing this place, Captain Lewis heard a loud roar above him, and, crossing the point of a hill a few hundred yards, he saw one of the most beautiful objects in nature: the whole Missouri is suddenly stopped by one shelving rock, which, without a single niche, and with an edge as straight and regular as if formed by art, stretches itself from one side of the river to the other for at least a quarter of a mile. ”

“ The Missouri River is now the only important tributary of this section of the Mississippi from the west. Like the western tributaries, farther south, it meanders over broad bottom lands, which in some places reach a width of ten miles or more, bounded by bluffs. ”

“ The shores of the river are abrupt, bold and composed of a black and yellow clay, the bars being formed of black mud, and a small proportion of fine sand; the current strong. In its course the Missouri makes a sudden [223] and extensive bend towards the south, to receive the waters of the Muscleshell. The neck of land thus formed, though itself high is lower than the surrounding country, and makes a waving valley extending for a great distance to the northward, with a fertile soil which, though without wood, produces a fine turf of low grass, some herbs and vast quantities of prickly pear. ”

“ All were convinced that it was in vain to attempt to accomplish their journey on foot at this inclement season. They had still many hundred miles to traverse before they should reach the main course of the Missouri, and their route would lay over immense prairies, naked and bleak, and destitute of fuel. The question then was, where to choose their wintering place, and whether or not to proceed further down the river. They had at first imagined it to be one of the head waters, or tributary streams, of the Missouri. ”

“ The first driver keeps his eye upon the careful guides, picking the shallowest route. Careless endeavors to pull straight across, instead of pulling two miles around to gain one, involved trouble. The murky water is surcharged with sand, which is forever blown into it as it winds through the great plains, and is the source of the Missouri River's excessive supply of sand. It proves to be pure water if allowed to stand and settle. ”

“ It is a highly notorious geographical object, and a very proper one to govern a national boundary; but the name called for in the act of Congress of 1820, and in the constitution of Missouri, is 'the rapids of the River Des Moines.' Then, and ever since, the great rapid in the Mississippi River has been known by a different name. ”

“ But far more than that vast body of soil and of rocky strata, which formerly filled the space now occupied by the immediate valley of the river, has been removed by the Missouri. From the summit of the bluffs there is a sloping ascent towards the interior of the country; and it is probable the aggregate elevation of the great plains is not less than three hundred feet above the surface of the river. ”